SEOUL, May 31 (Xinhua) -- South Korean banks' bad loan ratio rose in the first quarter due to more new delinquent loans than bad loan settlements, financial watchdog data showed Friday.
The ratio of bank loans, overdue at least three months, came in at 0.50 percent of the total at the end of March, up 0.03 percentage points from three months earlier, according to the Financial Supervisory Service.
Delinquent loans continued to increase due to high interest rates and the faltering real estate market.
New delinquent loans amounted to 4.5 trillion won (3.3 billion U.S. dollars) in the January-March quarter, higher than the settlement of non-performing loans worth 3.5 trillion won (2.5 billion dollars).
The central bank had left its benchmark interest rate unchanged at 3.50 percent since January last year after raising it by 3.0 percentage points in phases over the past one and a half years.
The bad loan ratio for bank corporate loans added 0.02 percentage points from three months earlier to 0.61 percent at the end of March, while the ratio for household loans rose 0.02 percentage points to 0.27 percent.
The ratio of loan loss reserves to bad loans among local banks retreated 10.9 percentage points to 203.1 percent in the cited quarter. ■
