This festive season, the trend of taking personal loans has increased rapidly among Indians, through which, huge growth has been seen in the overall retail loan, and the consumer durable loan has almost doubled in comparison to the pre-COVID level of 2019. It is noteworthy that the increase in personal loans is almost the same in big cities like Delhi and Mumbai and tier-2 cities and district headquarters.
As per the latest report of credit bureau CRIF Highmark, in March-September 2022, consumer and durable loans have increased 25% in comparison to March-September 2019, while earlier, an 11% growth was recorded in the same period. According to a report of Kotak Institutional Equity, loans worth rupees 174.3 lakhs have been taken across the country, out of which 48.9% loan is from the retail segment. Experts have suggested that doubling of new loans hints towards the fact that the economy has recovered.
On the other hand, as per a report of SBI, out of the total loan given out this year, 36% is in tier-3 and tier-4 districts only, which shows that the recovery of economy has happened at a fast pace in towns as well. It is interesting to note that this year, more than half of the personal loans distributed this year, have been distributed in the last two months only, which means these loans have been taken for the festive season.