Loan industry insights
Credit growth, lending rates, and asset quality across the Indian loan market — sourced from RBI's Annual Report and Trend and Progress of Banking publications.
Latest RBI Annual Report loaded: 2024-25.
Loan Rate Benchmarks
Reviewed 2026-10-03Loans in India — Industry Insights
Year-by-year credit growth and lending-rate trends across the Indian loan market — not another rate-comparison table. Looking for the health insurance equivalent instead? See the Insurance Insight Deck.
Bank credit growth by category, FY2025-26
Bank lending sped up through the year: growth in non-food credit rose from 10.9% to 15.9%. Vehicle loans swung the most (8.6% to 18.6%), while housing stayed steadier (10.7% to 11.5%). Credit cards went the other way: growth fell to 3.5%. Consumer durables loans were still shrinking (-5.3%), and loans against gold jewellery were growing at more than twice last year's level, above 120%.
| Category (y-o-y growth) | Mar-25 | Jul-25 | Oct-25 | Jan-26 | Mar-26 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Non-food Credit | 10.9% | 9.9% | 11.1% | 14.4% | 15.9% |
| Agriculture & Allied | 10.4% | 7.3% | 8.9% | 11.4% | 15.7% |
| Industry | 8.2% | 6.5% | 10% | 12.1% | 15% |
| Services | 12% | 10.2% | 13% | 15.5% | 19% |
| Personal Loans | 11.7% | 11.9% | 14% | 14.9% | 16.2% |
| PERSONAL LOAN SUB-CATEGORIES | |||||
| Housing | 10.7% | 9.6% | 11% | 11.1% | 11.5% |
| Vehicle Loans | 8.6% | 8.9% | 12.5% | 17.1% | 18.6% |
| Credit Card Outstanding | 10.6% | 5.6% | 7.7% | 1.5% | 3.5% |
| Consumer Durables | -1% | -5.8% | 1% | -4% | -5.3% |
| Loans against Gold Jewellery | 121.1% | 136.4% | 128.5% | 128.8% | 123.1% |
Source: RBI Annual Report 2025-26 (published 29 May 2026), Table II.4.1 (Sectoral Credit Growth, scheduled commercial banks; data provisional). The Mar-25 column is the report's own "2024-25" figure, March 2025 over March 2024, as RBI now states it: some of these were restated from the year before, for example housing was shown as 15.3% in the 2024-25 report and is 10.7% here.
The year before: FY2024-25, as published in that year's report
| Category (y-o-y growth) | Apr-24 | Jul-24 | Oct-24 | Jan-25 | Mar-25 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Non-food Credit | 15.3% | 13.9% | 12.8% | 12.4% | 12% |
| Agriculture & Allied | 19.8% | 17.4% | 15.5% | 12.5% | 10.4% |
| Industry | 6.9% | 7.7% | 8% | 7.4% | 8% |
| Services | 19.5% | 15.1% | 14.1% | 13% | 13.4% |
| Personal Loans | 17% | 16.6% | 15.8% | 14.9% | 14% |
| PERSONAL LOAN SUB-CATEGORIES | |||||
| Housing | 17.6% | 18.2% | 17.8% | 16.7% | 15.3% |
| Vehicle Loans | 17.2% | 15.5% | 12% | 8.8% | 8.6% |
| Credit Cards Outstanding | 23% | 23.3% | 16.9% | 15.6% | 10.6% |
| Consumer Durables | 11% | 7.6% | 6.6% | -1.1% | -1.3% |
Source: RBI Annual Report 2024-25, Table II.4.2. Kept as published, so it is not joined to the table above.
Further back: Mar-22 → Oct-24
Gold-backed loans stand out — growth accelerated from -1.5% in Mar-22 to 56.2% by October 2024, far ahead of every other category, reflecting the well-documented gold-loan boom as gold prices rose. The 2024-25 report's table did not list this category separately; the current table does (above).
| Category (y-o-y growth) | Mar-22 | Mar-23 | Mar-24 | Oct-24 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Loans against Gold Jewellery | -1.5% | 19.6% | 14.8% | 56.2% |
| Education | 5.9% | 15.3% | 23.7% | 17.6% |
| Credit Card Outstanding | 12.7% | 32.5% | 25.6% | 16.9% |
| Housing (incl. Priority Sector) | 12.9% | 14.5% | 36.5% | 12.1% |
| Vehicle Loans | 8.8% | 24% | 17.4% | 11.4% |
| Consumer Durables | -1% | 17.7% | 13% | 6.6% |
Source: RBI "Report on Trend and Progress of Banking in India", 2022-23 edition (Mar-22) and 2023-24 edition (Mar-23/Mar-24/Oct-24), both Table IV.17 (Sectoral Deployment of Gross Bank Credit by SCBs) — a different RBI return (Section-42, all SCBs) than Table II.4.2 above (SIBC return, ~95% of banks), so figures for the same month can differ slightly from that table; shown separately rather than spliced into one row with it.
Earliest available: Mar-19 → Mar-22
Shown separately, in that report's own terms, rather than extending the table above: this edition's "Consumer Durables" figures (growth of 93.4% then 73.2%) don't reconcile at all with the later reports' figures for the exact same dates — a genuine category redefinition (these loans were likely reclassified following RBI's later risk-weight changes on consumer credit), not a normal data revision. Splicing it in would make a real reclassification look like a data error.
| Category (y-o-y growth) | Mar-19 | Mar-20 | Mar-21 | Mar-22 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Housing Loans | 19.5% | 15.9% | 11.8% | 12.3% |
| Auto Loans | 12.9% | 7.3% | 13.9% | 15.1% |
| Credit Card Receivables | 34.5% | 18.6% | 4.9% | 18.1% |
| Education Loans | 1.8% | 3.7% | -0.3% | 7.4% |
| Consumer Durables | -51.7% | 21.3% | 93.4% | 73.2% |
| Retail Loans (total) | 18.6% | 15.4% | 12.3% | 13.6% |
Source: RBI "Report on Trend and Progress of Banking in India", 2020-21 edition (Mar-19, Table IV.15) and 2021-22 edition (Mar-20/Mar-21/Mar-22, Table IV.16) — both "Sectoral Deployment of Gross Bank Credit", confirmed consistent with each other for every overlapping date before combining into one row.
Lending rates by loan category
Weighted average lending rate (WALR) on fresh loans — what a new borrower in each category was actually being charged, on average, at each point. RBI cut the repo rate by 100 basis points during FY2025-26 (and 125 points between February 2025 and March 2026), and lending rates on new loans followed: housing fell from 8.55% to 7.63%, education from 10.41% to 9.14%, vehicle loans from 10.37% to 9.57% and other personal loans from 10.87% to 10.07%. After the period this report covers, RBI raised the repo rate by 0.25 points to 5.50% on 7 October 2026, so rates on new loans can start moving back up. Credit-card rates are no longer in RBI's table (they were 37.72% in March 2025).
| Loan category | Mar-23 | Mar-24 | Mar-25 | Mar-26 | Trend |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Housing | 9.02% | 8.65% | 8.55% | 7.63% | ↓ |
| Vehicle | 10.47% | 9.21% | 10.37% | 9.57% | ↓ |
| Education | 10.26% | 10.45% | 10.41% | 9.14% | ↓ |
| Other Personal Loans | — | — | 10.87% | 10.07% | ↓ |
| Agriculture | 10.12% | 10.18% | 10.02% | 9.81% | ↓ |
| Industry (Large) | 8.34% | 8.39% | 8.33% | 7.41% | ↓ |
| MSMEs | 9.84% | 9.99% | 9.69% | 8.72% | ↓ |
Source: RBI Annual Report 2025-26, Table III.6 (Sector-wise WALR of SCBs, fresh rupee loans; Mar-25 and Mar-26) and Table III.4 (change in the repo rate). Mar-23 and Mar-24: RBI Annual Report 2024-25, Table III.6. The 2025-26 report restates March 2025 education loans at 10.41% (10.47% in the 2024-25 report). "—": not in the earlier report's table.
Asset quality (GNPA) by loan category
Gross NPA ratio — the share of a category's loans that have gone bad. This is a market-risk signal, not a borrower decision tool: agriculture consistently carries the highest NPA ratio of any sector, while retail loans carry the lowest. Within retail specifically, there's a real story in the two years below — education loans used to be the riskiest retail category (2.7% in Sep-24) and improved sharply to 1.4%, while consumer durables moved the other way and became the new highest-risk category (2.3% to 2.9%).
| Sector | Sep-23 (All SCBs) | Sep-24 (All SCBs) | Sep-25 PSB | Sep-25 PVB | Sep-25 All SCBs |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Agriculture & Allied | — | 6.2% | 6.7% | 4.6% | 6% |
| Industry | 4.2% | 2.9% | 2.3% | 1.6% | 1.9% |
| Services | — | — | 2.1% | 1.5% | 1.8% |
| Retail | — | 1.2% | 0.9% | 1.3% | 1.1% |
| Retail loan type | Sep-24 | Sep-25 | Trend |
|---|---|---|---|
| Housing Loans | 1.1% | 0.9% | ↓ |
| Vehicle/Auto Loans | 1.4% | 1.6% | ↑ |
| Education Loans | 2.7% | 1.4% | ↓ |
| Credit Card Receivables | 2.3% | 2.2% | ↓ |
| Consumer Durables | 2.3% | 2.9% | ↑ |
| Other Retail Loans | 1.2% | 1.1% | ↓ |
Source: RBI "Report on Trend and Progress of Banking in India", 2024-25 edition (Charts IV.23 & IV.24a) and 2023-24 edition (Charts IV.21 & IV.22a) — read directly from the chart images (RBI publishes this as a chart, not a table) and cross-checked against each report's narrative text, which quoted the same figures.
Credit composition — where bank lending actually goes
Each category's share of total (Agriculture + Industry + Services + Personal Loans) credit. This isn't an RBI-published table — it's computed from the same outstanding-amount figures behind the credit-growth tables above. The real story here: Industry's share has fallen by a third since Mar-19 (35% to 23%), while Personal Loans has grown to take its place (24.5% to 34.4%) — Indian bank lending has shifted meaningfully from financing businesses to financing households over five years.
| Category (% of total) | Mar-19 | Mar-20 | Mar-21 | Mar-22 | Mar-23 | Mar-24 | Oct-24 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Agriculture & Allied | 12.9% | 12.5% | 13.2% | 13.3% | 13.3% | 13.2% | 13.4% |
| Industry | 35% | 32.8% | 29.2% | 28.6% | 25.9% | 23.3% | 23% |
| Services | 27.6% | 27.8% | 27.6% | 27.3% | 28.6% | 29.3% | 29.2% |
| Personal Loans | 24.5% | 26.8% | 30% | 30.7% | 32.2% | 34.1% | 34.4% |
Computed from RBI "Report on Trend and Progress of Banking in India" (2020-21 through 2023-24 editions), each category's outstanding ₹crore ÷ the sum of all four categories at that date. Mar-19 and Mar-20 use those editions' "Retail Loans" category in place of "Personal Loans" — confirmed close enough at the aggregate level to combine (within 0.2% for the one overlapping date checked).