China Starts Prime Loan Rate as New Benchmark in Market Push
This article is for subscribers only.
China started publishing a new lending rate based on quotes from banks and signaled it may eventually replace the current benchmark set by the People’s Bank of China, deepening a shift to market-based interest rates.
China’s interbank funding center, under the PBOC, will calculate a weighted average “loan prime rate” each day from costs charged to the best clients by nine major lenders including Industrial & Commercial Bank of China Ltd., the Beijing-based central bank said in a statement today. The one-year rate is 5.71 percent today, compared with the PBOC-set benchmark of 6 percent.