Central bank pumps funds into market in October

BEIJING -- China's central bank injected 561.35 billion yuan ($84.6 billion) into the market via various tools in October to maintain liquidity.

The People's Bank of China (PBOC) said 498 billion yuan was added via the medium-term lending facility (MLF)to keep interbank liquidity stable. The funds will mature in one year at an interest rate of 3.2 percent.

The injection brings total outstanding MLF loans to 4.4 trillion yuan at the end of October.

The MLF tool was introduced in 2014 to help commercial and policy banks maintain liquidity by allowing them to borrow from the central bank using securities as collateral.

The central bank increasingly relies on open-market operations for liquidity, rather than cuts in interest rates or reserve requirement ratios.

In October, the PBOC also granted 24.95 billion yuan to financial institutions through the standing lending facility (SLF) to meet provisional liquidity demand.

Last month, the central bank injected 38.4 billion yuan of funds through the pledged supplementary lending (PSL) to the China Development Bank, Agricultural Development Bank of China and the Export-Import Bank of China.

The PBOC's open market operations are closely watched by the market, as they have become major tools for the central bank in pursuing its monetary policy.

China set the tone of its 2017 monetary policy as prudent and neutral, keeping appropriate liquidity levels but avoiding excessive liquidity injections.