The mainland’s broadest measure of new credit, total social financing (TSF), slowed in February to US$153 billion (RMB938.7 billion), the People’s Bank of China said on Monday, compared with RMB1.07 a year ago and the RMB1.31 trillion median estimate of analysts surveyed, Bloomberg reported. A decrease in non-banking loans, which fuel China’s shadow banking sector, accounted for much of the slowdown. Non-bank financing fell to 17% of TSF compared to 42% the year before. “Off-balance-sheet activity has been curtailed and contained,” said Ding Shuang, senior China economist at Citigroup, noting that the policy stance would make China’s 7.5% GDP target challenging.