Ernst & Young has withdrawn a report on non-performing loans, branding its own assessment of the bad debts on the books of the Big Four banks "factually erroneous", the Financial Times reported. The People's Bank of China previously attacked the report from the accountancy firm as ?ridiculous and barely understandable?. In its NPL report, Ernst & Young put the total bad debt figure for the Big Four at US$358 billion – far higher than the official US$133 billion. The discrepancy appears to be derived from a UBS assessment of the amount of new loans that would not be repaid in the wake of a jump in lending between 2002 and 2004. "E&Y China serves as auditors for one of those banks and their audit supports the bank's contribution to the total of US$133 billion for all four of the commercial banks," the accountancy firm said in a statement.