China's New Loans Missed Expectations in August
China's new bank loans in August fell short of expectations, even as authorities sought to downplay lending as a key financial metric.
New loans stood at 60 billion yuan, equivalent to $8.94 billion, last month, compared with negative 340 billion yuan in July, according to official data published Monday. That missed the 420 billion yuan expected by economists in a Wall Street Journal survey by a large margin.
Part of August's weakness was due to seasonal softness, though the reading also reflects tepid domestic borrowing demand as a yearslong property slump drags on.
In recent months, the Chinese central bank has been urging market watchers not to focus solely on loans as a broad gauge of financing demand, arguing that the world's second-largest economy is undergoing transformations that elevate the role of bonds and equities.
Total social financing, a broader measure of credit that includes nonbank financing, came in at 1.66 trillion yuan. M2, the broadest measure of money supply, rose 7.5% last month from a year earlier, down from the 7.7% increase in July and below the 7.7% growth anticipated by surveyed economists.
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(END) Dow Jones Newswires
September 14, 2026 05:45 ET (09:45 GMT)
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