Source: Reserve Bank of India — Database on Indian Economy (DBIE): Scheduled Commercial Banks – Select Aggregates. Outstanding on the
last reporting date of each month, all scheduled commercial banks, in ₹ lakh crore, monthly from
January 2018. Up to November 2025 that is the last reporting Friday of the month (RBI's old fortnight definition); from December 2025 RBI's fortnights end on the 15th and the last day of the month, so each value is the true month-end. Year-on-year growth across that change therefore compares slightly different dates (e.g. 31 August 2026 against 22 August 2025, the last reporting Friday of that month). For September 2026, growth uses the comparison date RBI itself prints in its statement, 3 October 2025, because the last September Friday in 2025 (19 September) falls before the quarter-end. Bank Credit and Aggregate Deposits as published, with recent months taken from RBI's fortnightly
Scheduled Banks' Statement of Position (latest figure for each date, including RBI's revision in the following statement); the credit–deposit ratio is credit ÷ deposits.
Reading the numbers. "Growth" is the
year-on-year change in outstanding on the last reporting date of the month. Bank credit leads investment and consumption, so it turns weeks-to-months before GDP. Deposits fund that lending; when credit grows faster than deposits, the
credit–deposit ratio climbs — a sign banks are stretching their books (about
80% in August 2026, after a 2026 peak near 83% — high by the standard of the years since 2018). The step-up around
July 2023 is the HDFC Ltd–HDFC Bank merger, which moved a large housing-loan book onto bank balance sheets overnight and inflates credit growth through mid-2024; it is a definitional shift, not a lending surge. By sector, RBI's latest release (fortnight ended 31 August 2026) shows non-food credit up
18.8% year-on-year, led by services (
24.3%), with industry at
18.2%, agriculture
17.2% and personal loans
16.9% (
RBI, Sectoral Deployment of Bank Credit – August 2026).
The latest month is provisional and revised later. Source:
RBI DBIE.