Banks' credit growth at 19.73% for year ended July 30

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) today said credit offtake from banks grew by 19.73 per cent during the one-year period ended July 30, up from 15.14 per cent a year-ago.

As of July 30, credit offtake from banks stood at Rs 34.55 lakh crore. As of June 31 last year, bank credit stood at Rs 28.86 lakh crore, the RBI said.

The RBI, in its annual monetary policy, estimated that credit would grow by 20 per cent this fiscal.

"The growth in non-food credit of banks is placed at 20 per cent. As always, these numbers are provided as indicative projections and not as targets," RBI had said.

For the one-year period ended July 16 this year, credit growth stood at 21.26 per cent, beating the RBI estimate of 20 per cent.

This happened primarily due to a sharp rise in credit growth due to large borrowings for 3G spectrum.

The government realised over Rs 1 lakh crore from sale of spectrum for high speed mobile and broadband services, far higher than the estimated revenue of Rs 35,000 crore in the Budget.

According to analysts, the demand for credit is good and the country can expect robust growth in the current fiscal.

"I don't see demand for credit going down. Apart from industrial production growth, which has slowed down slightly due to the base effect, all other indicators are encouraging. I expect credit growth of 20-22 per cent in the current fiscal," ratings agency Crisil Chief Economist D K Joshi said.