Corporate debt market growth at 10-year low

Growth in India’s corporate debt market has been slowing since 2017, and recorded its weakest growth in over a decade at 9.7% in May 2019, according to the Bloomberg Economics index. In comparison, bank lending has increased by 12.7% during the 12 months ending May 24. It appears that borrowers are continuing to opt for banks, which are currently suffering one of the worst bad debt ratios in the world. This is an unfortunate trend for policy makers, as they continue to look at ways to expand the corporate debt market to reduce the load on banks that are exposed to huge risks.