China's Banks Scaled Back Lending in December

Chinese financial institutions issued 584.4 billion yuan ($90 billion) of new yuan loans in December, down sharply from 1.12 trillion yuan in November, data from the People's Bank of China showed Friday.

Newly extended loans in December were below the 965 billion yuan estimate of 11 economists polled by The Wall Street Journal.

Total social financing, a broader measurement of credit in the economy, came in at 1.14 trillion yuan ($175.56 billion) in December, down from 1.6 trillion yuan in November.

China's broadest measure of money supply, M2, grew at a record-low pace of 8.2% at the end of December compared with a year earlier, lower than the 9.1% increase at the end of November.

The figure was below economists' median estimate for a 9.2% gain.

--Lin Zhu

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

January 12, 2018 03:42 ET (08:42 GMT)