China April Bill Financing Surges to 1.24 Trillion Yuan: Institutional Analysis on PBoC Credit Data

The People's Bank of China recently released its April 2026 financial statistics report. Affected by the pace of credit issuance and slow government bond issuance, aggregate financing to the real economy continued to show a year-on-year decline in April.

PBoC data shows that RMB loans increased by 8.59 trillion yuan in the first four months of 2026, compared to 8.6 trillion yuan in Q1 alone.

Credit issuance exhibits strong seasonality, with Q1 traditionally being the concentrated window for bank lending and accounting for the bulk of annual credit disbursement. Consequently, new loan issuance naturally slowed in April.

Notably, against the backdrop of slowing credit issuance, bill financing increased by 1.24 trillion yuan in April — a prominently elevated figure that became the standout feature of the month's financial data.

From the perspective of the secondary bill market, commercial banks increased their allocation to bill assets to smooth overall credit scale and meet disbursement targets. Increased "bill-grabbing" activity drove bill rates to continuously decline in late April, with prices falling to their lowest levels of the year.

Guolian Minsheng Securities banking analyst Wang Xianshuang noted: structurally, non-bill credit declined by a net 1.25 trillion yuan in April, with bill rediscount rates approaching zero by month-end — signaling that banks and policy authorities have stabilized the overall credit scale. Based on current bill rate trends, May credit is expected to show net growth.

The turbulence in the bill market directly reflects the state of credit disbursement. Q1 saw sharp volatility: 6-month national bank bill rediscount rates climbed to 1.33% by end-February, setting a new record and surpassing government bond rates for the first time.

A bill market insider told reporters that large banks faced significant deposit maturity pressure in Q1 due to deposit solicitation and liability management pressures, combined with delayed interbank CD issuance, which increased bill asset supply and drove a surge in pre-holiday supply well above historical levels. Meanwhile, as markets widely anticipated weak February credit disbursement, some trading accounts built positions early. However, better-than-expected actual data triggered rapid sentiment reversal, prompting concentrated stop-loss selling and severe short-term supply-demand imbalance, pushing rates sharply higher.

Orient Securities research notes that going forward, regulators may pay closer attention to credit operations, guiding financial institutions to appropriately manage overall credit volume and pace. Demand-side policy reinforcement cannot be ruled out to support credit demand.