Loans availed by women under age thirty-five crosses 40% in 2022: Report

New Delhi, Mar 7 (KNN) The loans availed by women across various sectors under the age bracket of 35 has continued to increase over the past three years from 38.3 per cent in 2020 to 43.4 per cent in 2022, according to an analysis by credit data company Crif Highmark.

While the share in the 35-50 age group has declined from 43.5 per cent in 2020 to 41.2 per cent in 2020, it said.

The report points out that the outstanding retail loans availed by women have grown by 25 percent to Rs 26 lakh crore as of December 2022 from Rs 20.7 lakh crore in the previous year.

Consequently, the overall retail borrowing share of women has increased to 26 per cent, compared to 25.3 per cent in December 2021.

The debt portfolio is led by property loans which rose 26 per cent on-year to Rs 7, 88,827 crore. The gold loans soared by 64 per cent to Rs 7, 06,047 crore, indicating the rising level of financial stress households are facing.

The home loan segment grew by 20 per cent to Rs 30, 52,041 crore in December 2022 as compared to Rs 25, 86,902 crore in 2021.

Business loan witnessed a rise of 25 per cent to Rs 13,73,899 crore, while personal loans jumped by 35 per cent to Rs 10,05,864 crore, which was 17 per cent of the total, and agri plus tractor loans gained 8 per cent to Rs 9,14,412 crore, or 19 per cent of the total, the analysis showed.

Other sectors that witnessed a rise in loans were the auto sector (26 per cent growth), education loans (25 per cent growth), and consumer durable loans (29 per cent growth).

Top five states for female borrowers for home loans are Maharashtra (Rs 2, 18,162 crore), Karnataka (Rs 99,679 crore), Tamil Nadu (Rs 92,841 crore), Gujarat (Rs 75,843 crore) and Telangana (Rs 75,837 crore).

When it comes to business loans too, Maharashtra tops the list with Rs 47,225 crore outstanding loans. In agri and tractor loans, Andhra topped with Rs 24,549 crore.

The list of personal loan borrowers was led by Tamil Nadu (Rs 22,247 crore), followed by Maharashtra (Rs 20,988 crore), Karnataka (Rs 17,795 crore), Telangana (Rs 15,454 crore) and Andhra Pradesh with an outstanding of Rs 12,837 crore.

This shows that women borrowers from southern states have higher credit exposure compared to their western and northern counterparts.  (KNN Bureau)