BEIJING — China's new yuan-denominated loans totaled 2.73 trillion yuan (about $416.3 billion) in March, down 103.9 billion yuan year-on-year, central bank data showed on April 12.

In the first quarter of 2021, new yuan loans hit 7.67 trillion yuan, with a year-on-year increase of 574.1 billion yuan, the People's Bank of China said. Loans in the household and corporate sectors increased by 2.56 trillion yuan and 5.35 trillion yuan, respectively.

The outstanding amount of M2, a broad measure of money supply covering cash in circulation and all deposits, increased by 9.4 percent, year-on-year, to 227.65 trillion yuan by the end of March.

The M2 growth rate was 0.7 percentage points lower than that at the end of February and that from the same period last year.

The outstanding amount of M1, a narrow measure of the money supply covering cash in circulation plus demand deposits, stood at 61.61 trillion yuan at the end of March. It was up by 7.1 percent year-on-year.

The outstanding amount of M0, the amount of cash in circulation, went up by 4.2 percent from a year ago to 8.65 trillion yuan at the end of last month.

The central bank injected a total of 222.9 billion yuan of net cash into the market in Q1.

PBOC data also showed that newly added social financing, a measurement of funds that individuals and non-financial firms receive from the financial system, came in at 3.34 trillion yuan in March. It was down by 1.84 trillion yuan from the same period last year.

Total new social financing amounted to 10.24 trillion yuan in Q1, down by 873 billion yuan from the same period a year ago.

A data breakdown indicated increasing support for the real economy from the financial sector. Loans to the real economy accounted for 77.3 percent of the total social financing in Q1, up by 12 percentage points from the 2020 level.

The data on April 12 also showed China's new yuan deposits hit 8.35 trillion yuan in the first three months, up by 284.4 billion yuan from the same period a year earlier. By the end of March, the outstanding yuan deposits increased by 9.9 percent, year-on-year, to 220.92 trillion yuan.

In Q1, RMB settlements for cross-border trade totaled 1.7 trillion yuan, while RMB settlements for direct investment reached 1.17 trillion yuan, central bank data showed.