Bank credit growth in FY21 so far (up to January 29) has reached about 90 per cent of the year-ago level, going by the Reserve Bank of India’s data on Scheduled Banks’ Statement of Position in India.

This is probably an indication that credit demand is limping back to normalcy after the economy was ravaged by the Covid-19 pandemic in the first six months of FY21.

Year-to-date (YTD) credit growth of all scheduled banks at ₹3,39,147 crore was about 90 per cent of the year-ago YTD credit growth of ₹3,74,938 crore.

On a year-on-year basis, credit growth has slowed to 5.92 per cent as of January-end 2021 against 7.41 per cent as of January-end 2020.

Bankers expect credit offtake to be in the 10-12 per cent range in FY22 as the economy recovers from the impact of the pandemic. The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has projected real GDP growth at 10.5 per cent in FY22.

Banks are continuing to receive copious deposit inflows despite deposit rate cuts. YTD deposit growth at ₹12,36,944 crore was about 1.5 times the year-ago growth of ₹8,26,394 crore in the year-ago period.

On a year-on-year basis, deposit growth was at 10.85 per cent as of January-end 2021 against 10.42 per cent as of January-end 2020.