Non-food bank credit registered a 9.3 per cent year-on-year (yoy) in December 2021 as compared to 6.6 per cent a year ago, according to the Reserve Bank of India’s data on “Sectoral Deployment of Bank Credit”.
This pick-up in credit growth came on the back of improvement in credit appetite in all four segments — agriculture and allied activities, industry, services and personal loans.
Credit to agriculture and allied activities continued to perform well, registering a robust growth of 14.5 per cent in December 2021 as compared to 7.7 per cent in December 2020.
Credit growth to industry improved noticeably to 7.6 per cent in December 2021 from 0.4 per cent in December 2020.
Size-wise, credit to medium industries registered high double-digit growth of 86.5 per cent in December 2021 as compared to 17.1 per cent last year.
Credit growth
Credit growth to micro and small industries accelerated to 20.5 per cent in December 2021 from 1.3 per cent a year ago. Credit to large industries recorded a growth of 1.3 per cent in December 2021 against a contraction of 0.5 per cent a year ago, RBI said.
Credit growth to services sector accelerated to 10.8 per cent in December 2021 from 8.0 per cent a year ago, mainly due to improvement in credit growth to ‘non-banking finance companies’.
Credit to the personal loans segment continued to expand at a robust rate and grew by 14.3 per cent in December 2021 vis-à-vis 8.8 per cent a year ago. Housing remained the prime driver of overall growth in the segment, the central bank said.