Banks' NPLs highest in 17 quarters

Banks. bad loans rose for a seventh straight quarter to the highest in 17 quarters since 2009 amid China.s economic slowdown.

Non-performing loans rose 13 billion yuan ($2.1 billion) from the first quarter to 539.5 billion yuan at the end of June, the China Banking Regulatory Commission said on its website yesterday.

Bad loans rose across all types of lenders on the Chinese mainland, including state-owned, joint-stock, city, rural and foreign banks.

But the rise in bad loans was the smallest since the first quarter of 2012, and lower than the 33.6 billion yuan increase in the first quarter of this year.

The overall bad loan ratio was flat during the second quarter at 0.96 percent, according to the CBRC.

The big state-owned lenders saw its bad loan ratio improve slightly from 0.98 percent in the first three months to 0.97 percent at the end of June.

The rural banks. asset quality at 1.63 percent was the worst. But their ratio was also an improvement from 1.73 percent over the same period.

The foreign banks kept the best asset quality with a ratio of 0.6 percent.

Experts said the rapid credit growth in wealth management products, trust loans and local government financing activities exerted risks to the banking sector due to the lenders. role.