Data on sectoral deployment of bank credit for the month of December 2023¹ collected from 41 select scheduled commercial banks, accounting for about 95 per cent of the total non-food credit deployed by all scheduled commercial banks, are set out in Statements I and II.

On a year-on-year (y-o-y) basis, non-food bank credit² registered a growth of 15.8 per cent in December 2023³ as compared with 15.3 per cent a year ago.

Highlights of the sectoral deployment of bank credit³ are given below:

• Credit to agriculture and allied activities expanded by 19.5 per cent (y-o-y) in December 2023 as compared with 11.6 per cent a year ago.

• Credit to industry grew at 8.1 per cent (y-o-y) in December 2023 as compared with 8.6 per cent in December 2022. Among major industries, growth in credit (y-o-y) to ‘food processing’ and ‘textiles’ accelerated in December 2023 as compared with the corresponding month of the previous year, while that to ‘basic metal & metal products, ‘chemicals & chemical products’ and ‘infrastructure’ decelerated.

• Credit to services sector inched up to 19.6 per cent (y-o-y) in December 2023 as compared with 19.4 per cent a year ago. Among major contributors, growth in credit (y-o-y) to ‘trade’ improved while that to ‘non-banking financial companies (NBFCs)’ decelerated in December 2023.

• Personal loans growth slowed to 17.7 per cent (y-o-y) in December 2023 (20.4 per cent a year ago), due to moderation in credit growth to housing and vehicles.

Ajit Prasad            
Director (Communications)

Press Release: 2023-2024/1773

¹ Data pertain to the last reporting Friday of the month.

² Non-food credit data are based on Section-42 return for the last reporting Friday of the month, which covers all scheduled commercial banks (SCBs).

³ Excluding the impact of the merger of a non-bank with a bank.