Two-wheelers’ loan demand dropped after note ban

Credit information company TransUnion CIBIL on Wednesday said that consumer loan demand for buying two-wheeler and consumer durables dropped significantly since the demonetisation announcement.

“In the week after the demonetisation announcement, TransUnion CIBIL saw a significant decrease in new credit demand, with the focus for both consumers and bankers being cash exchange and collections,” said Amrita Mitra, Vice President – Financial Services Research and Consulting at TransUnion CIBIL.

“Two-wheeler and consumer durable loans, usually serviced by private banks and NBFCs (non-banking financial company), were most negatively impacted — significantly in key geographies like Maharashtra, Gujarat, Andhra Pradesh and West Bengal.”

The company’s analysis on the impact of demonetisation on credit demand for the period of November-December comes a day after Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers (SIAM) in its monthly data showed that two-wheelers segment’s sales last month dwindled by 22.04 per cent to 910,235 units.However, the company pointed out that demand for other consumer loan types, including credit cards and auto loans, crept up through December 2016, after a sharp decline immediately after the demonetisation announcement.

“Following unprecedented consumer credit growth over the past four years, including loans for vehicles and homes, credit cards and other unsecured credit products, the announcement on demonetisation created short-term disruption in the demand for consumer credit,” the company’s analysis report said.

“However, the impact has not been uniform across lenders, geographies or loan types; data as recent as December 2016 show a recovery across both the demand and supply side for retail loans.”

The analysis disclosed that prior to November 8, credit demand was growing at an average 35 per cent on an annual basis across all loan products, with significant year-on-year growth in demand for consumer loans (up 71 per cent) and credit cards (up 41 per cent).

“This growth was seen broadly across the spectrum of lenders,” the report said.

“These growth rates were broad-based across all geographies and were accompanied by historically low non-performing asset (NPA) rates as banks instituted strong, data-driven risk management practices.”