Xiamen regulators urge lenders to tighten loan checks

Banking regulators in Xiamen, a port city in East China's Fujian province, have stepped up checks of consumer loans and personal business loans offered by commercial banks to prevent funds from flowing into the housing sector in violation of regulations.

During the first nine months of 2017, consumer loans and personal business loans increased rapidly in Xiamen. The growth rate was 30 percentage points higher than that of the previous year. The regulators believed that some of the funds were used for house purchases, said Zhang Xintan, director-general of the Xiamen Office of the China Banking Regulatory Commission, at a news conference on Thursday.

"On the one hand, we required banking institutions to track the money flow. On the other hand, we used an examination and analysis system developed by the CBRC to analyze the data of questionable loans and asked banks to conduct further checks," Zhang said.