Bad loans pose worsening risk

Chinese banks face a "major risk" from rising nonperforming loans in the second half of the year as the economy slows, PricewaterhouseCoopers said on Thursday.

NPLs at the country's top 10 listed banks stood at 520 billion yuan ($84 billion) as of June 30, up 71 billion yuan from Dec 31, 2013. That was almost as much as the rise for all of last year, which was 73 billion yuan, according to PwC.

The overall NPL ratio rose by 7 basis points to 1.06 percent during the first half.