‘Women borrowers less risky than men’

 

 

Women borrowers are better than men from a credit risk perspective, a credit information company (CIC) has said.

The credit scores of 57 per cent of women borrowers make them fall under the “prime” category as against 51 per cent for men, data shared by Transunion Cibil, a CIC, said. It can be noted that retail credit is generally considered as a much safer bet by lenders because a bulk of it is secured against assets like a house. The company said consumption-led credit products like personal loans and consumer durable loans are also gaining popularity among women borrowers. “As more women borrowers enter the workforce and become financially independent, they are seeking credit opportunities to fulfil their life goals and aspirations,” it explained. Women are also seeking more business loans, and the share of women in over all business loan portfolio has increased to 32 per cent here, as per the annual data release by the CIC. It said the overall share of women borrowers currently stands at 28 per cent and those who are new to credit constitute 34 per cent. There are approximately 454 million adult women, of which only about 63 million are active borrowers as of 2022, the company said. A study on new-to-credit (NTC) borrowers shows that highest proportion of women borrowers have availed agricultural loans and consumer durable loans as their first credit facility in 2022, it said.

The number of credit applications by women borrowers stood at 80.6 million in 2022, while 72.7 million loans were disbursed to women in the same year. Over a fourth of the loans disbursed were consumption loans, and the overall outstanding balances to women were Rs 16 lakh crore, representing 19 per cent or nearly a fifth of overall advances.

Tamil Nadu has the highest number of women borrowers at 9.17 million, while West Bengal reported the highest growth, it said.