China's new yuan-denominated loans jumped to a record 3.34 trillion yuan (about 477 billion U.S. dollars) in January, exceeding analysts' forecast, data released by the People's Bank of China (PBOC) showed Thursday.

The new loans in January surpassed a Reuters' analysts poll of 3 trillion yuan and the median estimate of 4.2 trillion yuan.

The M2, a broad measure of money supply that covers cash in circulation and all deposits, reached 202.31 trillion yuan, up 8.4 percent year on year at the end of January.

Household loans fell to 634.1 billion yuan in January, while corporate loans surged to 2.86 trillion yuan. Loans from non-banking financial institutions decreased to 156.7 billion yuan in January.

At the end of January, the balance of foreign currency loans stood at 795.8 billion U.S. dollars, a year-on-year decrease of 4.4 percent. Foreign currency loans increased 8.8 billion U.S. dollars in January, 28.7 billion U.S. dollars less than the previous year.

Total social financing up 10.7%

Total social financing (TSF), a broad measure of credit and liquidity in the economy, stood at 256.36 trillion yuan at the end of January, said the PBOC.

In January alone, TSF was at 5.07 trillion yuan, up from 2.103 trillion yuan in December, also beating analysts' forecast.

China has been making efforts to bring down overall financing costs for small and micro-businesses in recent years. During the current coronavirus battle, more measures will be rolled out to help small businesses survive. 

As of Wednesday, Chinese banking institutions had offered credit support of over 746 billion yuan (about 106.53 billion U.S. dollars). 

The country said on Thursday that it will cut insurance fees by more than 500 billion yuan (71.27 billion U.S. dollars) this year.

The PBOC on Thursday cut the benchmark lending rate – the loan prime rate (LPR) by 0.1 percent to 4.05 percent from the previous monthly fixing, as a way of lowering financing costs for businesses coping with the epidemic.