China banking sector onshore assets up 14.6%

BEIJING — Chinese banks held 230 trillion yuan ($33.4 trillion) in onshore assets as of the end of February, according to data released by the China Banking Regulatory Commission on Tuesday.

The volume marked an increase of 14.6 percent year-on-year, the banking regulator said.

By the end of February, lenders' onshore liabilities rose 14.7 percent to reach 212.3 trillion yuan, the data showed.

The combined onshore assets of China's "big five" lenders -- the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, Agricultural Bank of China, Bank of China, China Construction Bank, and Bank of Communications -- came in at 83.1 trillion yuan by the end of last month, accounting for 36.1 percent of the total assets in the industry.

China's more than 130 city commercial banks, which were founded in 1995 through shareholding reform of urban credit cooperatives, recorded 28.9 trillion yuan in total assets, accounting for 12.6 percent of the industry's total.