Recent RBI Quarterly BSR data shows a clear shift in where credit is expanding: bank branches in rural, semi-urban, and urban centres have recorded faster credit growth than metropolitan branches, raising their combined share of total credit from 36.9% in December 2020 to 40.4% in December 2025.

This is striking because it suggests that credit growth is increasingly being driven outside metros, while metropolitan (urban) credit growth appears to have slowed and, in relative terms, become comparatively stagnant.

The demand for credit is clearly rising beyond metros, but the traditional tools to assess creditworthiness haven’t evolved at the same pace. Many of these customers are “new-to-credit,” with little or no bureau history. If they’ve never used a credit card or taken a formal loan before, how does a bank assess risk without excluding them altogether?

This is where alternate data underwriting becomes critical. Alternate data-driven digital underwriting and credit risk management platforms address this exact gap by analysing non-traditional financial data to build a 360-degree borrower profile within minutes.

Also Read: Bank Credit Growth Remains Strong at 11.5%: Center

Instead of relying solely on bureau scores, they look beyond credit scores using alternate data to understand a borrower’s real repayment ability and flag risk so lenders can safely lend to people with little or no credit history.