BEIJING - China's commercial banks saw their non-performing loan ratio standing at 1.59 percent at the end of the first quarter, basically in line with the figure reported at the end of last year, official data showed.

The non-performing loan balance of the commercial banks reached 3.4 trillion yuan ($478.28 billion) at the end of March 2024, 141.4 billion yuan more than that at the end of December 2023, data from the National Financial Regulatory Administration revealed.

The data confirmed that the country's commercial banks had maintained generally stable credit asset quality.

The performing loans balance of the commercial banks was 208.2 trillion yuan at the end of March, while outstanding loans by banking financial institutions, including commercial banks, to small and micro-sized enterprises totaled 74.4 trillion yuan, according to the data.

At the end of the first quarter, the total domestic and foreign currency assets of China's banking financial institutions stood at 429.6 trillion yuan, an increase of 8.1 percent year-on-year, the data indicated.