China's new yuan-denominated loans totaled 3.13 trillion yuan (about 491.8 billion U.S. dollars) in March, central bank data showed Monday.
The data, higher than the market forecast of 2.8 trillion yuan, marked an increase of 395.1 billion yuan over the same period last year.
The M2, a broad measure of money supply that covers cash in circulation and all deposits, increased 9.7 percent year on year to 249.77 trillion yuan at the end of last month, according to the People's Bank of China.
The M2 growth rate was 0.3 percentage points higher from the same period last year.
The outstanding amount of M1, narrow measure of money supply which covers cash in circulation plus demand deposits, stood at 64.51 trillion yuan at the end of March, up 4.7 percent year on year.
The outstanding amount of M0, the amount of cash in circulation, went up 9.9 percent from a year ago to 9.51 trillion yuan at the end of last month.
In the first quarter of 2022, the central bank injected a total of 431.7 billion yuan of net cash into the market, the data showed.
