The gross loan portfolio of microfinance industry grew by 5.16% to Rs 2.43 lakh crore as on September 30, 2021 from Rs 2.31 lakh crore in the year-ago period, according to a report by Microfinance Institutions Network (MFIN) on Wednesday.

MFIN is an industry association comprising of 58 NBFC-MFIs and 39 associates including banks, small finance banks (SFBs) and NBFCs. The industry served 5.65 crore unique borrowers, through 10.52 crore loan accounts as of September-end.

As of September 30, 2021, 13 banks held the largest share of portfolio in micro-credit with total loan outstanding of Rs 1.01 lakh crore, which is 41.52% of total microcredit universe.

NBFC-MFIs (non-banking financial company-microfinance institution) are the second largest provider of micro-credit with a loan amount outstanding of Rs 82,749 crore, accounting for 33.95 per cent to total industry portfolio, the report said.

Small finance banks (SFBs) had a total loan amount outstanding of Rs 40,534 crore with a total share of 16.63 per cent.

NBFCs accounted for another 6.85% and other MFIs account for 1.05% of the universe, the report said.

The microfinance active loan accounts rose by 0.22% during the past 12 months to 10.52 crore as on September 30, 2021. In terms of regional distribution of GLP, east and northeast and south accounted for 65 per cent of the total portfolio, it said.

The report said gross loan portfolio of NBFC-MFIs increased by 15.45% to Rs 81,408 crore as on September 30, 2021, as compared to Rs 70,512 crore as on September 30, 2020. The GLP includes an owned portfolio of Rs 71,010 crore and managed portfolio of Rs 10,398 crore.

As on September 30, 2021, NBFC-MFIs, on an aggregated basis, had a network of 15,789 branches with 1,31,009 employees.

In the second quarter of fiscal 2021-22, NBFC-MFIs disbursed a loan amount of Rs 19,672 crore through 54.26 lakh accounts, as compared to Rs 8,155 crore disbursed in the second quarter of FY 2020-21 through 25.99 lakh accounts, the report said.

Average loan amount disbursed per account during the second quarter of FY 2021-22 was Rs 36,251 which is an increase of around 15.54% in comparison to the same quarter of last financial year.

NBFC-MFIs received a total of Rs 14,389 crore in debt funding during second quarter of FY 2021-22, which is a 46.86%  increase from the year-ago quarter.

Total equity of the NBFC-MFIs grew by 12.16% YoY to Rs 19,139 crore as on September 30, 2021, the report said.