Credit to Deposit Ratio Elevated Even as Deposit Growth Hits 6-year High

Synopsis:

Credit offtake continued to grow, increasing by 20.1% year-on-year (y-o-y) to reach Rs. 158.1 lakh crore, for the fortnight ending December 15, 2023. This surge was due to the impact of HDFC’s merger with HDFC Bank along with the festival season and growth in personal loans. If we exclude the impact of the merger, credit grew at a lower rate of 15.8% y-o-y fortnight compared to last year’s growth of 17.4%. The outlook for bank credit offtake continues to remain positive for FY24.
Deposits too grew by 14.1% y-o-y for the fortnight (including the merger impact), reaching a 6-year high. Excluding merger impact growth stood at 13.3%. Sequentially we saw a marginal decline of 0.3%. Deposit growth is expected to improve in FY24 compared to earlier periods as banks look to shore up their liability franchise and ensure that deposit growth does not constrain the credit offtake.
The Short-term Weighted Average Call Rate (WACR) stood at 6.78% as of December 22, 2023, compared to 6.48% on December 23, 2023, due to pressure on short-term rates.