In unsecured loans pie, middle-layer NBFCs take the largest slice

Non-banking financial companies (NBFCs) in the middle-layer had the highest share of unsecured loans, at 27.3 per cent, followed by those in the upper layer at 24.3 per cent at end-December 2023, according to a paper in the Reserve Bank of India’s (RBI’s) September bulletin.

This still marks a reduction in both classes of NBFCs respective shares from December 2022 at 31.7 per cent and 22.9 per cent. This is for the first time that the granular details of the break up among NBFCs layers after the central bank upped the risk weighting on unsecured credit by 25 per cent in November 2023. In January 2021, the central bank had come up with a four-tired NBFC structure: base layer, middle layer, upper layer and top layer.