India's non-banking financial companies (NBFCs) lent at a faster pace in September 2026, with total credit growing 15.4 per cent year-on-year, compared with 13.3 per cent in the same month last year, according to the Reserve Bank of India's data on sectoral deployment of credit by NBFCs, released on Friday, November 6.

Source: ANI / Reserve Bank of India

Retail lending did the heavy lifting. Retail loan growth accelerated to 21.9 per cent in September, from 16.8 per cent a year ago, as housing loans, loans against gold jewellery and vehicle loans all expanded faster, the central bank's data showed.

Source: The Hindu BusinessLine

Credit to agriculture and allied activities recorded a sharp recovery, growing 17.8 per cent year-on-year in September against 5.2 per cent a year earlier, ANI reported from the RBI release. The picture was weaker elsewhere: credit growth to industry slowed to 7.4 per cent from 10.2 per cent, with lending to infrastructure remaining subdued, and services credit growth moderated to 17.3 per cent from 23.0 per cent — though commercial real estate saw buoyant expansion and trade and transport operators borrowed more.

The September pace was, however, a shade below the preceding month: NBFC credit had grown 15.8 per cent year-on-year in August 2026, The Hindu BusinessLine noted. The year-on-year acceleration therefore rests mainly on the comparison with a slower September last year, powered by households and farms rather than by companies.

The figures are provisional. The RBI said the sectoral data are based on a sample of NBFCs in the Upper and Middle Layers and housing finance companies (HFCs), which together account for about 87 per cent of total NBFC credit.

For borrowers, the data underlines where India's shadow-banking system is putting its money: homes, vehicles, gold-backed loans and farm credit are growing at their fastest clip in a year, while big-ticket industrial lending — the kind that funds factories and infrastructure — continues to lag.