Thiruvananthapuram, March 26 : Banking activities in Kerala appear to be on the high with key indicators, including the credit-deposit ratio, registering a growth and total deposits standing at Rs. 220,489 crore, bankers said Tuesday.

The total deposits in the commercial banks reached the high of Rs. 220,489 crore till December 2012, up from Rs. 158,306 crore in December 2010.

These figures came out in the day-long 109th meeting of the State Level Bankers Committee here.

As of December 2012, the state had 5,140 branches of various banks while the number of such financial institutions in December 2010 were 4,488.

Incidentally, the total advances extended by banks in the state went up from Rs. 114,446 crore to Rs. 167,333 crore during the same period. There has also been a huge surge in non-resident Indians' (NRI) deposits in Kerala banks, which touched Rs. 62,708 crore in December 2012, up from Rs. 37,065 crore in December 2010.

There are four categories of commercial banks in the state - State Bank group, other nationalised banks, private sector banks and two regional rural banks.

The State Bank group has six associate banks and the state's own bank State Bank of Travancore has 734 branches in the state with a total deposits of Rs. 52,229.98 crore.

Among the 20 nationalised banks, Canara Bank with 332 branches leads with a total deposit of Rs. 16,455 crore, and among the private sector banks Federal bank with 576 branches has attracted total deposits of Rs. 28,779 crore.

There are 885 cooperative banks branches in the state which have a combined deposit of Rs. 29,173 crore. But they are excluded from the commercial bank category.

The credit-deposit ratio of commercial banks in the state also went up from 72.29 (December 2010) to 75.89 (December 2012). The other indicators like priority sector advances grew from Rs. 70,823 crore to Rs. 92,844 crore, agricultural advances from Rs. 30,063 crore to Rs. 41,842 crore.

The educational loans extended by banks grew from Rs. 5,733 crore to Rs. 7,897 crore with the number of individuals who availed of educational loans rising from 3,07,551 to 3,62,078. (IANS)