SEOUL, Aug. 21 (Xinhua) -- South Korean banks' loan delinquency rate hit its highest level for any June in a decade, driven by corporate debt pressures, financial watchdog data showed Friday.
The delinquency ratio of bank loans, overdue by at least one month, rose 0.04 percentage points from a year earlier to 0.56 percent at the end of June, according to the Financial Supervisory Service (FSS).
It represented the highest figure for the month of June since 2016.
The June delinquency rate, however, was down 0.11 percentage points compared to the previous month as domestic banks stepped up efforts to clear bad loans at the end of the second quarter.
The delinquency rate for corporate loans climbed 0.08 percentage points from a year earlier to 0.68 percent at the end of June, but the ratio for household loans inched down 0.01 percentage point to 0.40 percent.
In June, newly generated delinquent loans reached 2.6 trillion won (1.9 billion U.S. dollars), lower than the settlement of non-performing loans worth 5.3 trillion won.
Excluding the settled bad loans, the delinquency rate for new bank loans stood at 0.10 percent in June, down 0.01 percentage point from a year earlier.
The financial watchdog cautioned that there remained a possibility of a gain in the delinquency rate in the coming months due to economic uncertainties such as the global high-interest-rate environment and the prolonged geopolitical tensions in the Middle East. ■