Four findings
This brief follows bank deposits and bank loans fortnight by fortnight on the Reserve Bank's own tables, and sets loans as a share of deposits against the Reserve Bank's figures since 1998. It also sets out what the statement for 15 October 2026 will be read against once it comes out.
Deposit growth trailing loan growth
In each of the 28 fortnights between 5 September 2025 and 15 October 2026, deposits grew more slowly than loans, which means that the gap stayed open for more than a year. On 22 August 2025, the reporting date before the run began, deposits had grown faster. On 15 October 2026 deposit growth trailed loan growth by 1.5 percentage points: the supplement printed 18.2 per cent for loans and 16.7 per cent for deposits.
Source: RBI, Weekly Statistical Supplement, 19 September 2025, Tables 4 and 5 ; RBI, Weekly Statistical Supplement, 23 October 2026, Tables 4 and 5 .
Loans above four-fifths of deposits
The share has stayed above four-fifths in each of the 25 fortnights since 17 October 2025, on the Bank's figures, which since July 2023 include the merger of a non-bank with a bank. Worked out from the Bank's printed loans and deposits, it had passed four-fifths on ten earlier reporting dates, all between February 2024 and September 2025, and never for more than seven fortnights in a row. Its highest on any reporting date from 28 August 1998 to 28 November 2025 was 80.81 per cent, on 21 March 2025.
Source: RBI, Weekly Statistical Supplement, 31 October 2025, Tables 4 and 5 ; RBI, Weekly Statistical Supplement, 23 October 2026, Tables 4 and 5 ; RBI, Weekly Statistical Supplement, Table 3 until 2012 and Table 4 since 2013, the issues since August 1998 that the office's series holds .
The Reserve Bank's own warning
When the Reserve Bank's Governor spoke in August 2024, he said that “banks are facing challenges on the funding front with bank deposits trailing loan growth”. As a result, he said, “banks are taking greater recourse to short-term non-retail deposits and other instruments of liability to meet the incremental credit demand”.
Source: RBI, press release 2024-2025/851, 8 August 2024, Governor's Statement, August 8, 2024 .
The statement due by 30 October
The statement for 15 October 2026 is due between 28 and 30 October 2026. The supplement of 23 October 2026 has already printed the commercial banks' figures for that date, so the statement adds the co-operative banks.
Source: RBI, Weekly Statistical Supplement, 23 October 2026, Tables 4 and 5 ; RBI, press release 2026-2027/1332, 15 October 2026, Scheduled Banks' Statement of Position in India as on September 30, 2026 .
Loans Above Four-Fifths of Deposits
Table 5 of the Reserve Bank's weekly supplement prints the credit-deposit ratio, the banks' loans as a share of the deposits that they hold. On 15 October 2026 it stood at 81.59 per cent, which means that the banks' loans came to more than four-fifths of their deposits.
| Date | Loans as a share of deposits, per cent, as first printed | What the date marks |
|---|---|---|
| 21 March 2025 | 80.81 | the highest share before the run began, worked out from the printed levels |
| 3 October 2025 | 79.95 | the reporting date before the run began |
| 17 October 2025 | 80.44 | the first of the 25 fortnights |
| 15 June 2026 | 83.38 | the highest in the series |
| 15 October 2026 | 81.59 | the latest fortnight |
The share has stayed above four-fifths in each of the 25 fortnights since 17 October 2025, on the Bank's figures, which since July 2023 include the merger of a non-bank with a bank. Worked out from the Bank's printed loans and deposits, it had passed four-fifths on ten earlier reporting dates, all between February 2024 and September 2025, and never for more than seven fortnights in a row. Its highest on any reporting date from 28 August 1998 to 28 November 2025 was 80.81 per cent, on 21 March 2025.
On 3 October 2025, the reporting date before the run began, the share was 79.95 per cent.
Deposit Growth Has Trailed Loan Growth for 28 Fortnights
Each fortnight the supplement prints how much loans and deposits grew over the previous year. In each of the 28 fortnights between 5 September 2025 and 15 October 2026, deposits grew more slowly than loans, so the gap stayed open for more than a year. On 22 August 2025, the reporting date before the run began, deposits had grown faster.
| Date | Gap between the two growth rates, percentage points | What the date marks |
|---|---|---|
| 22 August 2025 | 0.2 | deposit growth was higher; the reporting date before the run |
| 5 September 2025 | 0.5 | the first fortnight of the run |
| 15 June 2026 | 5.7 | the widest gap |
| 15 October 2026 | 1.5 | the latest fortnight |
On 15 October 2026 deposit growth trailed loan growth by 1.5 percentage points: the supplement printed 18.2 per cent for loans and 16.7 per cent for deposits.
When the Reserve Bank's Governor spoke in August 2024, he said that “banks are facing challenges on the funding front with bank deposits trailing loan growth”. As a result, he said, “banks are taking greater recourse to short-term non-retail deposits and other instruments of liability to meet the incremental credit demand”.
He added that this “may potentially expose the banking system to structural liquidity issues”. The condition he described, deposits trailing loans, has held in every fortnight since 5 September 2025.
What the Statement for 15 October 2026 Will Be Read Against
The Reserve Bank publishes a Statement of Position of all scheduled banks about two weeks after each fortnight. The statement for 15 October 2026 is due between 28 and 30 October 2026. The supplement of 23 October 2026 has already printed the commercial banks' figures for that date, so the statement adds the co-operative banks.
| Measure | 17 October 2025 | 30 September 2026 | 15 October 2026 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Commercial banks: loans as a share of deposits, per cent, as the supplement of 23 October 2026 prints them | 80.54 | 80.98 | 81.59, already printed by the supplement of 23 October 2026 |
| All scheduled banks: loans as a share of deposits, per cent, worked out from the statements (17 October 2025 provisional) | 80.75 | 81.19 | due in the statement |
| Run of fortnights above four-fifths, commercial banks | 24 | 25 | |
| Run of fortnights with deposit growth below loan growth | 27 | 28 |
The supplement of 23 October 2026 already gives the commercial banks' share for 15 October 2026, which was 81.59 per cent, and sets it beside 80.54 per cent for 17 October 2025.
The statement's year-ago column will show 17 October 2025, a Friday, because its note says that it keeps the old definition of a fortnight until the statement for 30 November 2026. That statement marked its figures for 17 October 2025 as provisional for the banks that had not sent final figures.
If the share stays above four-fifths on 31 October 2026, the run will reach 26 fortnights.
Deposits have grown more slowly than loans in every fortnight since 5 September 2025. On 15 October 2026 the banks' loans stood at a larger share of their deposits than on any reporting date from August 1998 to November 2025.
Terms used
- Credit-deposit ratio
- The credit-deposit ratio is the banks' loans as a share of their deposits. The Reserve Bank prints it every fortnight for the scheduled commercial banks.
- Scheduled commercial banks
- These are the commercial banks in the Reserve Bank's statement, which include regional rural banks, small finance banks and payments banks.
- All scheduled banks
- This group adds the scheduled state co-operative banks and the scheduled urban co-operative banks to the commercial banks.
- Fortnight
- Since 15 December 2025 a fortnight ends on the fifteenth and on the last day of each month. Before that date it ended on alternate Fridays.
- Percentage point
- A percentage point is the difference between two rates that are both given in per cent.
Reports and source data
Sources and method
Every figure comes from the Reserve Bank's Weekly Statistical Supplement, Tables 4 and 5 (Table 3 for the loans and deposits before 2013), and from its Statements of Position of all scheduled banks. Each issue of the supplement gives the commercial banks' figures for a fortnight that closed a week or two before the issue.
Each fortnight's figure is the one printed by the first issue that gave that fortnight. Later issues sometimes revise a figure slightly. The one exception is the table that shows what the coming statement will be read against, because it follows the supplement of 23 October 2026.
The growth over the year is the rate that the supplement printed for each fortnight. Loans as a share of deposits is the credit-deposit ratio that Table 5 prints. On the 793 reporting dates the office's series holds from 28 August 1998 to 28 November 2025, it is worked out by dividing printed loans by printed deposits, which Table 3 of the supplement printed until 2012 and Table 4 since 2013. This is because for some of those dates Table 5 printed the ratio without the merger of 1 July 2023 and put the ratio with it in parentheses, and because the office's series holds no printed ratio for some dates from 2003 to 2012, although the Bank printed one in Table 3.
The share for all scheduled banks is worked out in the same way, from the statements for 30 September 2026 and 17 October 2025. Every cell read from a workbook was also checked against the office's series of the supplement.
- RBI, Weekly Statistical Supplement, 5 September 2025, Tables 4 and 5 . 2025-08-22. T_4 and T_5
- RBI, Weekly Statistical Supplement, 19 September 2025, Tables 4 and 5 . 2025-09-05. T_4 and T_5
- RBI, Weekly Statistical Supplement, 3 October 2025, Tables 4 and 5 . 2025-09-19. T_4 and T_5
- RBI, Weekly Statistical Supplement, 17 October 2025, Tables 4 and 5 . 2025-10-03. T_4 and T_5
- RBI, Weekly Statistical Supplement, 31 October 2025, Tables 4 and 5 . 2025-10-17. T_4 and T_5
- RBI, Weekly Statistical Supplement, 14 November 2025, Tables 4 and 5 . 2025-10-31. T_4 and T_5
- RBI, Weekly Statistical Supplement, 28 November 2025, Tables 4 and 5 . 2025-11-14. T_4 and T_5
- RBI, Weekly Statistical Supplement, 12 December 2025, Tables 4 and 5 . 2025-11-28. T_4 and T_5
- RBI, Weekly Statistical Supplement, 2 January 2026, Tables 4 and 5 . 2025-12-15. T_4 and T_5
- RBI, Weekly Statistical Supplement, 9 January 2026, Tables 4 and 5 . 2025-12-31. T_4 and T_5
- RBI, Weekly Statistical Supplement, 30 January 2026, Tables 4 and 5 . 2026-01-15. T_4 and T_5
- RBI, Weekly Statistical Supplement, 13 February 2026, Tables 4 and 5 . 2026-01-31. T_4 and T_5
- RBI, Weekly Statistical Supplement, 27 February 2026, Tables 4 and 5 . 2026-02-15. T_4 and T_5
- RBI, Weekly Statistical Supplement, 13 March 2026, Tables 4 and 5 . 2026-02-28. T_4 and T_5
- RBI, Weekly Statistical Supplement, 27 March 2026, Tables 4 and 5 . 2026-03-15. T_4 and T_5
- RBI, Weekly Statistical Supplement, 17 April 2026, Tables 4 and 5 . 2026-03-31. T_4 and T_5
- RBI, Weekly Statistical Supplement, 24 April 2026, Tables 4 and 5 . 2026-04-15. T_4
- RBI, Weekly Statistical Supplement, 8 May 2026, Tables 4 and 5 . 2026-04-30. T_4 and T_5
- RBI, Weekly Statistical Supplement, 29 May 2026, Tables 4 and 5 . 2026-05-15. T_4 and T_5
- RBI, Weekly Statistical Supplement, 12 June 2026, Tables 4 and 5 . 2026-05-31. T_4 and T_5
- RBI, Weekly Statistical Supplement, 26 June 2026, Tables 4 and 5 . 2026-06-15. T_4 and T_5
- RBI, Weekly Statistical Supplement, 10 July 2026, Tables 4 and 5 . 2026-06-30. T_4 and T_5
- RBI, Weekly Statistical Supplement, 24 July 2026, Tables 4 and 5 . 2026-07-15. T_4 and T_5
- RBI, Weekly Statistical Supplement, 14 August 2026, Tables 4 and 5 . 2026-07-31. T_4 and T_5
- RBI, Weekly Statistical Supplement, 28 August 2026, Tables 4 and 5 . 2026-08-15. T_4 and T_5
- RBI, Weekly Statistical Supplement, 11 September 2026, Tables 4 and 5 . 2026-08-31. T_4 and T_5
- RBI, Weekly Statistical Supplement, 25 September 2026, Tables 4 and 5 . 2026-09-15. T_4 and T_5
- RBI, Weekly Statistical Supplement, 9 October 2026, Tables 4 and 5 . 2026-09-30. T_4 and T_5
- RBI, Weekly Statistical Supplement, 23 October 2026, Tables 4 and 5 . 2026-10-15. T_4 and T_5
- RBI, press release 2024-2025/851, 8 August 2024, Governor's Statement, August 8, 2024 . 2024-08-08. the whole release
- RBI, Weekly Statistical Supplement, Table 3 until 2012 and Table 4 since 2013, the issues since August 1998 that the office's series holds . . Table 3 until 2012 and Table 4 since 2013, the rows of aggregate deposits and bank credit
- RBI, press release 2026-2027/1332, 15 October 2026, Scheduled Banks' Statement of Position in India as on September 30, 2026 . 2026-10-15. page 1
- RBI, press release 2025-2026/1417, 30 October 2025, Scheduled Banks' Statement of Position in India as on Friday, October 17, 2025 . 2025-10-30. page 1