The Bloomberg business news service reported on May 15, that China's banks had the biggest quarterly increase in bad loans since 2005 as a slowdown in the world’s second-largest economy causes defaults to rise.

It cited China's Banking Regulatory Commission as disclosing on May 15, that Nonperforming loans rose by 54 billion yuan ($8.7 billion) in the three months through March to 646.1 billion yuan, the highest level since September 2008. Bad loans accounted for 1.04 percent of total lending, up from 1 percent three months earlier.