China's new yuan loans in February stood at 905.7 billion yuan (130.2 billion U.S. dollars), down from January's record 3.34 trillion yuan, central bank data showed on Wednesday.

A Reuters poll had forecasted the new yuan loans in February would fall to 1.10 trillion yuan, affected by coronavirus outbreak and accompanying prevention and control measures .

The new yuan loans in the first two months totaled 4.24 trillion yuan, up 130.8 billion yuan year on year.

Meanwhile, the M2, a broad measure of money supply that covers cash in circulation and all deposits, rose by 8.8 percent year on year to 203.08 trillion yuan at the end of February, beating the 8.5-percent forecast in the Reuters poll.

The narrow measure M1, which covers cash in circulation plus demand deposits, increased by 4.8 percent year on year to 55.27 trillion yuan by the end of February, 4.8 percentage points higher than that at the end of January and 2.8 points higher than the same period of last year.

Meanwhile, newly added social financing, a measurement of funds that individuals and non-financial firms receive from the financial system, registered 855.4 billion yuan, down 111.1 billion yuan from a year earlier.

At the end of last month, the total financing came in at 257.18 trillion yuan, up 10.7 percent year on year. For the first two months, the total financing reached 5.92 trillion yuan, an increase of 271.7 billion yuan from a year ago.

Since the outbreak of the COVID-19, the central bank has employed a slew of targeted tools to ensure liquidity and especially support worst-hit small businesses.

For instance, the central bank granted special re-lending funds of 300 billion yuan to help SMEs, and increased their re-lending and re-discount quota by 500 billion yuan.