The Chinese government is flexing more muscle to halt the slide in Chinese stocks.
The country’s 17 biggest commercial banks have heeded the call to buoy the market and have reportedly lent 1.3 trillion yuan ($209.4 billion) to China Securities Finance, China’s state-backed margin lender.
China Securities Finance is the only institution that provides margin financing loan services to Chinese securities firms.
China Securities Finance as of Monday had received 186 billion yuan from China Merchants Bank, the biggest financier of the lending group, said financial magazine Caijing on Friday, citing unnamed sources.
Last month’s 30% slide in the mainland stock market was partly caused by the government’s decision to restrict margin lending by brokers. The huge run up in stocks had been attributed to new retail investors buying a lot of stock on margin. In an effort to stop the slide, the government reversed itself and decided that it needed to make more margin available to help people start buying stocks again and stop the market from falling.
In addition to loosening of margin requirements, the government also halted initial public offers and banned firms and their executives from selling shares.
The Chinese margin lender had 2.5 trillion yuan to 3 trillion yuan worth of funding available as of this week, Bloomberg reported on Friday.
Such regulatory moves seem to be having some effect. The Shanghai Composite Index rose 3.51% Friday.