Rural India bounces back from cash crisis
Labourers who work the land prosper as micro-finance recovers from demonetisation
India’s vast rural hinterland, which makes up 70 per cent of the South Asian country’s population, is showing signs of recovery from last year’s cash crunch, boosting optimism that increased spending will help the broader economy regain its vigour.
The micro-finance industry is rebounding, real rural incomes are rising and unemployment is falling, according to brokerage Motilal Oswal Securities and an Indian unit of HSBC in analysis that contrasts to the distress that has swept the farming sector.
“We believe repayments and improved collection trends have increased the confidence of companies to start disbursing loans at a healthy pace again,” Mumbai-based Alpesh Mehta and colleagues wrote in a report from Motilal Oswa.
India’s micro-finance industry, which provides small loans to entrepreneurs and business owners who have little collateral, was slammed when the government withdrew high-denomination bank notes from circulation late last year in a bid to stamp out corruption. And while farmers have taken to the streets across India to protest against plunging food prices, labourers who get paid a wage to work the land have actually seen their incomes rise after last year’s good monsoon, the HSBC economists wrote.
Loan collection rates in Uttar Pradesh, India’s largest and most populous state, are largely back at about 98 per cent levels, up from less than 50 per cent after denomonetisation, says the Motilal Oswa report. It adds that micro-finance disbursements, which grew 13 per cent last year compared with 80 per cent the previous year, are expected to return to pre-ban levels inside six months.
The gold loan company Manappuram Finance has risen 68 per cent from its low after demonetisation in November and Bharat Financial Inclusion, India’s largest listed micro-finance firm, has rebounded 64 per cent over the same time frame.
However, the Indian state of Maharashtra, home to India’s financial capital, Mumbai, is lagging behind other states and continues to face delinquency pressures, with about 20 per cent of loans unpaid 90 days past due, according to Motilal Oswal. Interactions with micro-finance companies reveal no expectation of disruption from the rise of farm loan waivers in Indian states but instead a focus on the effects of demonetisation, the report said. Microfinance Institutions Network – India’s largest group of microfinance firms – reported that “demonetisation severely impacted the micro-finance business in multiple ways including slowing down of growth due to non-availability of cash for a few months”.
Motilal Oswal intends to observe delinquency trends for a few more quarters before reaching conclusions over the impact of waivers.
The rise in credit growth at the micro-finance level is complemented by a rise in rural incomes and purchasing power, according to HSBC Securities and Capital Markets (India).
“Macro indicators have improved” in rural India, say the HSBC economists. The plunge in inflation has helped to boost annual real income growth to just under 4 per cent from contracting levels a year ago, while rural unemployment has sunk from about 9 per cent last September to about 4 per cent.
Normal rains so far in 2017 and a bumper crop in 2016 after a two-year drought have generated more jobs for rural Indians who work the land – some 70 per cent of rural households who are “landless”, according to HSBC.
That has help to pushed up motorcycle sales and the production of consumer non-durables in this segment, according to HSB.
While falling farm prices have hit many rural Indians hard, they have also boosted purchasing power and consumption among the population, which could help a broader recovery in the Indian economy that is suffering from a slowdown in growth, soured loans and weaker manufacturing sector.