Home loans continue to dominate retail credit, accounting for 51% of total personal loans in FY2024, remaining by far the largest segment, said a report. However, this share has dipped slightly from 53.6% in FY2016, it remains by far the largest segment.
Further, how the personal loans are distributed across categories reveals a clear shift in how Indian households are using credit.
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As per the data analysed by Client Associates (CA), a multi-family office, in its White Paper titled ‘The New Indian Household Balance Sheet’, the credit card usage has nearly doubled its share from 2.7% in FY2016 to 4.8% in FY2024 making it the fastest-growing segment, with a CAGR of 25.2% over the past decade.
Share of other personal loans has risen sharply from 21.2% in FY2016 to 26.3% in FY2024. Education loans on the other hand have dropped from 4.9% to 2.2%.
Vehicle loans have remained relatively stable but slightly moderated from 11% to 10.8% after peaking during the pandemic years. Loans against gold jewellery saw a temporary rise post-2020 before stabilising at around 1.9%, reflecting their role as a short-term liquidity tool during uncertain periods.
Consumer durable loans have shrunk significantly to just 0.4%.
The report further highlighted that the Indian household borrowings has grown at a striking 44.6% CAGR in the post-pandemic period, significantly outpacing the growth in savings. Personal and retail lending has expanded at a 17.6% compound annual growth rate from FY2016 to FY2025, nearly twice the rate of nominal GDP expansion.
Household financial debt has jumped to 6.2% of GDP in FY2024, compared to the pre-pandemic average of approximately 4.1%, reducing net financial savings from 7.7% to 5.2% of GDP.
In a separate report, the TransUnion CIBIL’s Gold Loan Landscape Report said Gold loans have grown rapidly to become India’s second-largest retail credit product.
The gold loan balances have grown 3.8x since March 2022, with their share in India’s retail credit portfolio rising from 5.9% to 11.1% by December 2025.