According to the latest Reserve Bank of India data, the share of female borrowers in the total individual credit outstanding in the banking sector declined marginally to 22.54% in FY2022 from 22.65% in the previous year. However, total credit outstanding of women rose by 13.92% from Rs 10.27 lakh crore to Rs 11.70 lakh crore as of March 2022.
Most banks offer a discount to women on home loans which are considered as safe credit avenue by bankers.
According to the RBI, as much as Rs 6.64 lakh crore of female borrowings were personal loans while housing loans accounted by Rs 3.80 lakh crore. The total number of credit accounts of female borrowers were 9.12 crore as against 8.66 crore last year. Female borrowers’ outstanding in the agriculture credit was Rs 3.28 lakh crore in 4.28 crore accounts and Rs 33,350 crore in industry.
The central bank said bank credit growth year of year, which stood at 5.1% in March 2021 increased in successive quarters of 2021-22 to move to double-digits by March 2022.
The metropolitan branches led the credit expansion and accounted for 54.5% of the incremental credit during 2021-22 while lending by rural, semi-urban and urban bank branches also recorded double-digit annual growth.
