(PTI)
The Reserve Bank of India’s (RBI’s) recently published Quarterly Estimates of Households’ Financial Assets and Liabilities shows the total amount of households’ gross financial assets fell from Rs141 trillion in September 2016 to Rs137 trillion by end-December 2016.
As a proportion of gross domestic product (GDP), the total amount outstanding in households’ financial assets fell from 95.2% of GDP in September 2016 to 89.2% by end-December 2016. At end-September 2017, the latest date for which the data is available, this metric was still below what it was in September 2016, as the chart shows.
Another way of looking at the numbers is to see the rate of growth in household financial assets. At end-September 2017, the growth in amounts outstanding in household financial assets was 9.7% compared to a year ago. At end-September 2016, this growth was much higher, at 17.1% year-on-year. Clearly, demonetisation led to a slowdown in the growth of household financial assets.