Total bank credit growth also decelerated to 11.8% in December 2024 from 12.6% in September.
The banking regulator said that all population groups in rural, semi-urban, urban and metropolitan branches of banks maintained double-digit credit growth, though with some moderation. This held true for both public sector and private sector banks.
Credit to agriculture and industry sectors also recorded some tempering in growth while lending for trade, finance and professional/other services accelerated during the third quarter.
About half of the loans provided by banks carried interest rates of 8% to 10% while around 16% of the loans were bearing less than 8% interest rate. The remaining loans were bearing 10% or above interest rate, RBI said.
Meanwhile, aggregate deposits rose by 11% in December 2024 as compared with 11.7% growth a quarter ago. Granular data showed that nearly 80% of the incremental term deposits mobilised during April-December 2024 were held in one to three years of maturity bucket, signalling a possible lag in softening of banks’ cost of deposit.The share of deposits bearing 7% or above interest rate in total term deposits increased to 70.8% in December 2024 from 61.4%.Term deposits rose by 14.3% year-on-year as compared with a 5.1% rise in saving deposits. This led to a further rise in the share of term deposits in total deposits to 62.1% at the end of December from 60.3% a year ago.