A report indicating Indian consumer sentiment who are now increasingly resorting to borrowing for car purchase has been presented yesterday. The outstanding loan portfolio for passenger vehicles increased to Rs 3.59 lakh crore until September 2017, registering a voluminous growth of 30%. This has come at a time when the air quality of several of the country's metro and non-metro cities is reported to be hazardous and concerns over vehicular emissions are being cited.

Average ticket size of car loans is also growing steadily with 20% increase in last 3 years to Rs. 5.5 lakh from Rs. 4.5 lakhs earlier.

The report highlighted financing of as many as 17 lakh passenger cars in the first six months of the FY 2017-18 as against 31 lakh cars financed in the previous fiscal year.

In respect of the ticket size, as against the earlier trend, car loan portfolio of Rs 5-10 lakh is becoming more popular and 41% of the overall car advances fall in this category. Rs. 2-5 lakhs ticket size bracket in the car loan category has taken a hit to 40% as against 55% in FY 2011-12.

On the geographical front, Maharashtra leads the chart with the most car loan amount disbursed while Telangana tops in respect of average ticket size.

The asset quality for the segment is not a worry for financiers and the NPAs have improved to 3.7% until September 2017 from 4% in the year-ago period.

With Inputs From PTI