SEOUL, July 16 (Xinhua) -- South Korean banks' loan delinquency ratio rose for the second consecutive month due to more delinquent loan than bad loan settlement, financial watchdog data showed Tuesday.
Bank loan, overdue at least one month, accounted for 0.51 percent of the total at the end of May, up 0.03 percentage points from a month earlier, according to the Financial Supervisory Service (FSS).
The bad loan ratio continued to increase after going up 0.05 percentage points in the previous month.
New delinquent loan came to 2.7 trillion won (1.9 billion U.S. dollars) in the cited month, higher than the settlement of non-performing loans worth 2.0 trillion won (1.4 billion dollars).
The delinquency ratio has roughly been on the rise after hitting a bottom at 0.20 percent in June 2022 on the back of the higher policy rate.
The central bank had left its benchmark interest rate unchanged at 3.50 percent since January 2023, after hiking it by 3.0 percentage points for the past one and a half years.
Excluding the settled bad loan, the delinquency ratio for fresh bank loan came in at 0.12 percent in May, unchanged compared with the previous month.
The delinquency ratio for bank corporate loan advanced 0.04 percentage points from a month earlier to 0.58 percent at the end of May, while the ratio for household loan gained 0.02 percentage points to 0.42 percent. ■