Gold loans dominate increase in retail credit growth: CRIF

Gold loans grew a whopping 53% in the second quarter of fiscal 2026, on a year-on -year basis supporting the increase in overall consumption credit, according to data from a CRIF Report, How India Lends, released recently.

Apart from being the fastest growing lending product, gold loans also dominated about 27% of the ₹2,237.8 crore worth of originations value in retail loans in the quarter ended September 2026. Personal loans were the second fastest in terms of value, growing at about 35.4% in the period, according to data in the report. Overall retail loans grew nearly 30% on a year-on-year basis. Originations Value refers to the total sanctioned amount.

While there is growth in loans sanctioned, the share of loans to people who are new to credit (NTC) reduced across all products except gold loans, where the share stayed stagnant in Q2 FY26, as against the same period last fiscal. Two wheeler loans continued to contribute the largest share of NTC loans with 34.4%, but this was down from 39.5% in the year-ago period.

Auto and housing loans increased 13.6% and 14.3% respectively in terms of origination, but their penetration in NTC customers were just 12.5% and 11.7% respectively, which was indicative of reduced demand in such sectors. 

In terms of asset quality, portfolio at risk of default between 31 and 180 days reduced marginally to 3.4% in the quarter ended September 2025, as against 3.7% in the year-ago period.

The authors of the report further highlighted a worrying 31-90 day delinquencies being the highest in the cohort borrowing between ₹75,000 and ₹1 lakh.

“We are seeing healthy demand for home, auto and gold loans and improved credit card outstanding coupled with elevated performance metrics across lender types,” said Sachin Seth, Chairman, CRIF High Mark and Regional Managing Director – CRIF India & South Asia in a statement.