A lending boom with fewer borrowers

Krishna· Host0:00

[intro music] In today's episode, we'll break down two important stories. First, we look at five hidden stories from RBI's annual report, and then we talk about why the fortunes of the tire industry changed last quarter. Welcome to The Daily Brief Show by Zerodha, where we cut through the noise to help you understand what's actually happening in the most important stories from business and markets. I'm your host, Krishna, and today is Wednesday, 10th June. Towards the end of last month, the RBI came out with its annual report. It's a 250-page monstrosity filled with reams of data, income statements, schedules, payment volume tables, footnotes on how gold is valued. Most people wouldn't read something this dense. We wouldn't either if we weren't trying to cover it for you. If you can brave it, however, this dry report is filled with fascinating nuggets about India, its economy, and its financial system. Some of its headline numbers have made the news, such as the 2.86 lakh crore check the RBI handed over to the government. We won't repeat those for you. Here are five things you probably didn't see in the headlines, however. Between April and December last year, the amount banks lent to small businesses grew 23.5% on a year-on-year basis. The sector's outstanding credit to micro, small, and medium enterprises went up from 29.8 lakh crores to 36.8 lakh crores, a difference of seven lakh crores in a single year. Now, by all accounts, this was a huge boom year, but