Here's why New Delhi can't afford NBFCs to stumble even accidentally

At 14 per cent of GDP, India's shadow-banking universe is much smaller than the 70 per cent ratio in the People's Republic, as Moody's Investors Service notes

Why do you call them shadow banks? That’s a criticism I’ve heard often since I started chronicling the troubled world of India’s nonbank finance companies following the high-profile bust of infrastructure lender IL&FS Group in early September. 

Some readers saw the characterization as an attempt to equate India’s pedigreed financiers of mortgages and consumer loans with China’s peer-to-peer lenders and trust companies, which saw scorching growth but are now gasping for survival. Meanwhile, India’s Housing Development Finance Corp. and Bajaj Finance Ltd. boast price-to-book ratios of almost 4 and more than 8 respectively, 

Still, “shadow lending” is a useful catchall