China's big banks halt new developer loans

China’s top four state banks will no longer issue new loans to property developers for the rest of the year after having met their full-year loan targets, Bloomberg reported, citing state-owned China Real Estate Business. The official newspaper said the four banks – Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (601398.SH, 1398.HK), China Construction Bank (601939.SH, 0939.HK), Bank of China (601988.SH, 3988.HK) and Agricultural Bank of China (601288.SH, 1288.HK) – had stopped approving new loans by the end of October. New loans extended by Chinese banks reached US$89 billion in October, with M2, the broadest measure of money supply, up 19.3% year-on-year. While pressuring banks to slow their lending and, in some occasions, to stop new loan issues to property developers, the central bank has also raised interest rates and reserve requirements in an effort to cool the nation’s housing market. Property prices in October rose 8.6%, the slowest rate in 10 months.