Bank credit grew at a slower 17.8 per cent in FY'09: RBI

Gross outstanding credit of scheduled commercial banks in the country amounted to Rs28,47,713 crore as of end-March 2009, an increase of 17.8 per cent year-on-year against the previous year's 24.1 per cent.

Aggregate deposits with the banks stood at Rs39,21,980 crore, up 20.7 per cent from the previous year and against an increase of 25.1 per cent the year before, the Reserve Bank of India said in a release on Friday.

The number of borrowal accounts increased by around 2.9 per cent to 110 million in end-March 2009 from 107 million in end-march 2008.

The number of deposit accounts in FY'09 increased 13.9 per cent to 662.3 million from about 581.7 million in end-March 2008.

The number of small borrowal accounts (with credit limit up to Rs2 lakh) contributed 87 per cent of total number of accounts as against 88.4 per cent at end-March 2008, while the share of outstanding credit of small borrowal accounts was 12.3  per cent against 13.7 per cent at end-March 2008.

Based on the distribution of outstanding credit according to interest rate ranges (accounts with credit limit of over Rs2 lakh), the proportion of outstanding amount was the highest at 30.7 per cent in the range of 10-12 per cent interest rate.