China seeks more info from banks amid concerns over debt

China's major banks have been asked to publish data on 12 key indicators, including off- balancesheet assets, to enhance their transparency amid concerns over looming debt crisis due to heavy borrowings by the provincial governments.
Banks with total assets of 1.6 trillion yuan (USD 264 billion) will need to publish the data within four months of the end of each financial year.
China said the move was in line with rules published by the Basel Committee on international banking regulation, BBC reported.
Last year, Chinese government has ordered audit of all government loans. The new move follows growing concerns over rising bad debts at Chinese lenders.

The data that banks will be required to disclose also includes cross-border assets and liabilities, the China Banking Regulatory Commission (CBRC) said.
The directive reportedly will apply to 12 of the 19 publicly listed Chinese banks.

Last year IMF estimated that China's public debt, including that of central and local governments, had exceeded 45 per cent of the country's GDP in 2012 from below 40 per cent in 2008, close to the international warning line of 60 per cent.
Chinese banks -- especially the big four state-owned lenders -- played a key role in keeping the country's growth momentum going by lending record sums of money in an attempt to sustain China's high growth rate.

However, concerns are raising over how the money was spent towards unproductive investments and that banks may not be able to recover those loans.
While the percentage of bad loans at China's banks account for less one per cent of total lending, some critics have claimed that banks were either rolling over such loans or even restructuring them to try and keep the reported figure low ,leading to calls for greater scrutiny of the sector, the report said.
China's state-owned Xinhua news agency quoted the banking regulator as saying that the latest move could help "boost the internal management of the banks and improve transparency".