Covid-19 crisis: Banking credit shrinks 1.7% in May as lockdown bites

Bank credit covering all segments — agriculture, industry, services, retail, and priority — shrunk by 1.7 per cent in May, compared to March. May was the second full month of the nationwide lockdown.

According to Reserve Bank of India (RBI) data, gross bank credit was down to Rs 91.08 trillion in May, from Rs 92.63 trillion in March.

On a year-on-year (YoY) basis, gross bank credit growth decelerated to 7 per cent in May 2020, from 11.5 per cent in May 2019, the RBI said in a statement.

Loans to industry — large, medium, small and micro — declined by