Where Indians keep their money.

Three lines, one for each kind of account. The pale lines on the left are the old definition of a household, used until March 2018; the solid lines from March 2019 use the new one, which follows the international system of national accounts. The two cannot be joined into one series, so the chart leaves a gap where the definition changed.

A savings account is money you can spend tomorrow. A fixed deposit is money you have agreed to leave alone for a set time in return for a higher rate. The split between the two is a rough measure of how much households are saving rather than simply keeping.

Each bar is one year's stock of fixed deposits held by individuals, split by the interest rate each deposit was booked at. Darker blue means a higher rate. Because deposits are locked at the rate of the day they were made, the stock changes slowly: a rate cut takes a year or two to work through, as old deposits mature and are renewed at the new rate.

The rate on a deposit is not what the saver keeps. Inflation and tax both take a share, so a 6% deposit in a year of 6% inflation earns nothing in real terms before tax.

Time left to maturity tells you how quickly deposits will be renewed at new rates. When most money comes due within a year, a change in interest rates reaches savers quickly. It also shows how short a horizon most savers keep: few lock money away for more than three years.

Each bar is the total held in deposits of a given size. Small deposits are numerous but hold little; the middle bands hold most of individuals' money. For companies and institutions the picture is the opposite, with deposits of a crore or more dominating, which is why individuals are shown here on their own.

Deposits are counted where the branch is, not where the depositor lives, so city branches collect some money from the towns around them. Even so, the gap is large: a rural branch serves many more depositors, each with far less.

Every deposit has an owner, and the RBI sorts owners the way national accountants do: government, companies that make or sell things (non-financial corporations), financial firms, households, and people and firms abroad. Households include individuals and the small businesses, trusts and self-help groups that households run.

The shares move slowly, so a change of a few points over seven years is large. A falling household share does not mean households saved less; it can mean companies parked more cash in banks, or that households moved savings to mutual funds and shares.

Each bar is the money held by people of one age group, the darker part in fixed deposits. Savings build over a working life and are spent slowly after it, so the older groups hold the most. Older savers also keep more of it fixed, for the interest.

This is why a cut in deposit rates is felt hardest by retired households: for many of them the interest on a fixed deposit is a monthly income, not a bonus.

A deposit is counted under the name of its holder. Where the bar is long, more of the money in individuals' names is in women's names; that is not the same as women controlling it, but it is a measure of whose name the account opens in.

A state's share of deposits reflects where firms and governments bank as much as where families save. Mumbai's branches hold the accounts of companies operating across the country.

Each bar is one district's share of the country's deposits. Mumbai's two districts and Bengaluru Urban alone hold about a fifth. Most districts hold well under half a per cent each, though they are where most depositors live.

Each line is a group's share of the country's deposits. Public sector banks still hold more than half, but private banks have gained every year. Regional rural banks, the deposit-takers of the countryside, have been slowly losing share.

The share of women among bank staff has crept up from about 24% to 26% since 2019. It is lowest in the small finance banks and the payments banks, the two newest kinds of bank.

Each band is a share of the money in fixed deposits. When rates are expected to rise, savers book short so they can renew at a better rate; when rates are high, they lock in for longer. The shift since 2022 into one-to-three-year deposits followed the rise in deposit rates.

The quarterly return is a second instrument: it covers the same banks except the regional rural banks, so its March total sits a few lakh crore below the annual figure. Read it for movement within the year. The household share falls each March, as the deposits of companies and governments swell at the close of the financial year.