South Korean banks’ loan delinquency ratio fell in December last year due to more bad loan settlements than new delinquent loans ahead of the end of the year, financial watchdog data showed Thursday.
Bank loans overdue at least one month were 0.38 percent of the total at the end of December, down 0.08 percentage points from a month earlier, according to the Financial Supervisory Service (FSS).
It marked the first downturn in three months as banks settled non-performing loans to clean the books at the end of the year.
New delinquent loans amounted to 2.2 trillion won (1.7 billion U.S. dollars) in the month, lower than the settlement of non-performing loans worth 4.1 trillion won (3.1 billion dollars).—Xinhua
