Bank of China (BOC), the country's second largest lender, said it would improve financial services for its small- and medium-sized corporate customers in 2008, a bank source told Xinhua on Saturday.

The bank's total number of small- and medium-sized corporate customers was nearly 30,000 in 2007.

"The bank has launched a tailor-made service process and risk control system for these customers and arranged experts to provide a wide array of services for them," BOC said.

Previously, it was more difficult for those small companies to get loans from banks compared with large enterprises. However, experts hold the financial services market for small companies was a lucrative one with great growth momentum.

The China Banking Regulatory Commission urged on Friday that financial institutions should provide better services to the country's small corporate customers this year.

The industry watchdog said although the country would continue a stringent monetary policy, the growth of loans to small enterprises this year would not be lower than the average loan growth rate to all customers.

In February, the outstanding value of all renminbi loans of financial institutions hit 27.22 trillion yuan (3.84 trillion US dollars), up 15.73 percent compared with the same period last year, the People's Bank of China reported on Wednesday.

The growth was 1.01 percentage points lower than January, the central bank said.