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New lending by China's four biggest state-owned banks was flat in the first two weeks of May and total deposits extended April's decline to fall by around 200 billion yuan ($31.65 billion), the Shanghai Securities News reported on Wednesday.
As of May 13, two of the big lenders posted higher loans, while another two saw their loans fall from a month ago, the paper said, citing an unidentified authoritative source.
Falling deposits were also squeezing the amount of credit that banks were able to lend, with one of the four banks suffering a 90 billion yuan drop in deposits.
The paper did not identify the banks.
China's Big Four, Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC)
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], China Construction Bank (CCB) [0939.HK Loading... () ], Bank of China [3988.HK Loading... () ] and Agricultural Bank of China (Agbank) [1288.HK Loading... () ], accounts for 30-40 percent of overall new loans. Total deposits in April fell by 0.5 percent, or 465.6 billion yuan, as households sought higher returns for their savings, challenging the banks' ability to ramp up lending in the face of the economic slow down.
While Beijing's move on Saturday to cut bank reserve ratios to 20 percent would help boost lending capacity by an estimated 400 billion yuan, many analysts have said that the government needs to roll out more aggressive fiscal response to bolster its sagging economy.
The news weighed on bank stocks, with the Hong Kong-listed shares of ICBC dropped 1.3 percent, CCB shares down 1.7 percent, Bank of China slid 2 percent and Agbank dipped 0.3 percent. Losses were less steep in the A-share market, where the stocks were down between 0.2 and 1.1 percent.
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