Since last November’s demonetization, credit card usage and outstanding balances have increased by as much as 39% according to a Business Today news report that cites data collected by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI). The RBI data quantifies India’s total credit card outstanding balance at Rs. 59,900 crores as of September 2017 as compared to the Rs. 43,200 crores level recorded at the end of September last year.
The report also states that compared to data recorded in September 2015, the current year data shows a 77.4% cumulative growth in the total value of credit card outstanding balances. Key reasons for this surge in numbers include the rise in digital payments since demonetization due to cash crunch and increase in the total number of active credit cards to 32.65 million by the end of August 2017. The number of active credit cards as per RBI records of August 2016 was considerably lower at 26.39 million.
The BT news report also mentions that the personal loan portfolio of Indian banks has grown by 19% during the previous year to Rs. 4468 billion in September 2017 as compared to Rs. 3262 billion level recorded at the same time last year.
The RBI data also showed an increase in home loan disbursals with current level recorded at Rs. 9086 billion as compared to Rs. 8058 billion worth of disbursals recorded in the same month last year. The only segment of loans that witnessed a decline during this period as per the BT report was the consumer durables loan accounts which fell to Rs. 178 billion in the current year from the previous year’s level of Rs. 195 billion.