Bank credit grows at 9.7% in December quarter: RBI

Scheduled commercial banks credit grew by 9.7% in the quarter ended December helped by higher growth in advances of private sector banks, RBI said.

"Bank credit registered a growth of 9.7% in December 2015 as compared to December 2014 largely due to higher credit growth of private sector banks," the Reserve Bank said in a release here today.

In terms of total number of credit accounts, banking sector registered a growth of 12.2%. The apex bank said more than four-fifth of the total credit accounts of the banking sector were concentrated in agriculture and personal loan segment.

However, the concentration in terms of outstanding credit in these segments was only 30%. The proportion of credit in terms of amount outstanding to industry was highest at 42 per in reporting quarter, it said.

Though large credit accounts (credit limit above Rs 25 crore) registered a y-o-y growth of 3.1% in three months to December, their share in total amount outstanding declined marginally to 46.5% from 47.8% registered in the year-ago quarter.

The weighted average lending rate (WALR) of all rupee loans and advances was estimated as 11.39% in December 2015 as compared to 11.59% in September 2015. The reduction in WALR was observed in all sectors, the Central Bank said.