The total deposits of the banking system grew by Rs 1,958 crore during the fortnight-ended May 9 to stand at Rs 5,12,035 crore.
While the quantum of demand deposits declined by Rs 1,530 crore to Rs 85,397 crore, time deposits went by Rs 3,488 crore to touch Rs 4,266,638 crore. Aggregate deposits have grown by Rs 8,439 crore in the current financial year.
Interestingly enough, investments by banks in government securities declined by Rs 895 crore in the corresponding period to stand at Rs 1,67,657 crore.
The investment portfolio of the banks has grown by Rs 8,555 crore in the current financial year to stand at Rs 1,99,646 crore.
During the fortnight-ended May 9, there was a marginal increase of 0.1 per cent in outstanding bank credit.
Total outstanding bank credit stood at Rs 2,78,211 crore on May 9. In the current financial year, bank credit rose by Rs 1,681 crore with food credit rising by Rs 350 crore and non-food credit increasing by Rs 1,331 crore.
On May 9 the investment deposit ratio and the credit deposit ratio stood at 38.99 per cent and 54.33 per cent respectively.
During the first week of May, reserve money grew by 0.6 per cent to touch Rs 2,07,514 crore.
There was a 2.8 per cent increase in the currency in circulation and a three per cent increase in net foreign exchange assets of the RBI. However there was a 4.3 per cent decline in the banker's deposits with the apex bank. Net Reserve Bank credit to the government stood at Rs 1,27,351 crore on May 9.
The central government's recourse to ways and means advances (WMA) which peaked at Rs 5,174 crore on April 18 fell to zero on April 25 and the government has not taken recourse to the WMA since then.
Total foreign currency reserves went up by $249 million to touch $27,539 million on May 16.
The increase in the reserves was only on account of the increase in foreign currency assets which increased to $23,570 million.
While the stock of gold stood at $3,966 million, the stock of Special Drawing Rights was $3 million.
On the interest rate front, the latest available data suggests that corporates were able to place commercial paper at 7.7 per cent to 12.3 per cent in the middle of last month.
This is against the fact the corporates were paying between 10 per cent to 13 per cent in the last week of April.
The quantum of commercial paper issued in the first fortnight of May was Rs 405 crore taking the stock of outstanding ones on May 15 to Rs 977 crore.
The yield on the 91-day treasury bill at the auction held on Friday remained at 6.77 per cent. For the first time since the middle of March the Reserve Bank of India revised the notified amount at the auction of 91-day treasury bills to Rs 500 crore.
There has been no devolvement in the past few auctions because of good support from the non competitive bidders.
