Bankers have told Reserve Bank of India in a meeting that the growth in credit offtake and also the annual growth rate can be expected to be lower than the apex bank's projected figure.

"We feel that credit pick-up will start now, even though it may not rise to 20% as we had earlier projected, it could be around 18% to 19%," said M D Mallya, chairman and managing director, Bank of Baroda.

"Credit growth is flat, but is expected to pick up slowly," said K Ramakrishnan, chief executive, Indian Banks' Association.

The monetary policy will be reviewed in November, the fourth time this financial year.

"We are through with the September quarter and it was a pre-policy meeting we had with the RBI," said S Sridhar, chairman and managing director, Central Bank of India.

The meeting was also attended by Chairman of SBI, O P Bhatt, ICICI Bank CEO and MD, Chanda Kochhar, StanChart India's head Neeraj Swaroop and Aditya Puri, MD, HDFC Bank.

"Deposit growth should happen now because interest rates have been increased by the banking system in the recent past," said Mallya.