Agriculture, household loans drive strongest turnaround in sectoral private credit

CBSL releases new survey data tracking sectoral private lending of banks from Apr.-Sept. 2025

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SECTORAL credit data from April to September 2025 has shown that the strongest month-to-month turnaround in private sector lending comes from agriculture and personal loans. Both segments recorded negative or weak flows in May and June, but shifted into firm double digit shares of monthly credit by the third quarter.

While industry and services continue to absorb the largest lending volumes, the data indicates that the broadening of credit flows is being led by the sectors that were contracting earlier in the year.

The sectoral figures come from the Central Bank of Sri Lanka’s (CBSL) Monthly Survey on Loans and Advances by Licenced Commercial Banks to the private sector. Introduced from April 2025, the survey tracks the monthly change in outstanding credit to four categories: agriculture and fishing, industry, services, and personal loans and advances.

Because the data captures net changes in credit rather than the total loan book, negative values represent months when repayments exceeded new borrowing, which can result in negative sector shares in the monthly totals.