South Korean banks' bad loan ratio fell last year amid the record-low borrowing cost, financial watchdog data showed Monday.
The delinquency ratio for bank loans stood at 0.77 percent as of the end of 2019, down 0.2 percentage points from a year earlier, according to the Financial Supervisory Service.
The non-performing loan ratio stayed below 1 percent for the sixth straight quarter through the fourth quarter as the country's central bank lowered its benchmark interest rate to a record low of 1.25 percent last October.
The completion of restructuring in the shipbuilding and shipping industries contributed to the lower bad loan ratio for companies.
The bad loan ratio for bank loans to companies declined 0.32 percentage points from a year earlier to 1.10 percent at the end of 2019.
The ratio for loans to households inched up 0.02 percentage points to 0.25 percent in the period.
Non-performing loan, newly made by banks in 2019, amounted to 15.1 trillion won (12.5 billion U.S. dollars), down 3.6 trillion won (3 billion U.S. dollars), or 19.1 percent, from the previous year.
The outstanding bad loan reached 15.3 trillion won (12.7 billion U.S. dollars) at the end of last year, down 2.9 trillion won (2.4 billion U.S. dollars) from a year earlier.
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