China has ordered six of the country’s largest banks to temporarily increase the amount of money they hold on reserve with the central bank as Beijing tries to rein in new lending and manage liquidity in the banking system.
The banks, which represent about half of all deposits in the country, will have to keep an extra 0.5 per cent of their deposits with the central bank for the next two months, according to bankers and analysts, who estimate this will remove about Rmb200bn ($30bn) from the interbank system.
Some analysts said that by raising the required reserve ratio for some lenders, the central bank was warning all banks that excessive loan growth would not be tolerated.