Chinese banks extended 2.73 trillion yuan ($416.6 billion) in new yuan loans in March, up from 1.36 trillion yuan in February, beating forecast, central bank data showed Monday.

A Reuters poll predicted the new yuan loans to rise to 2.45 trillion yuan in March.

For the first three months, the new yuan loans totaled 7.67 trillion yuan, an increase of 574 billion yuan year-on-year.

The M2, a broad measure of money supply that covers cash in circulation and all deposits, rose by 9.4 percent year-on-year to 227.7 trillion yuan at the end of March, according to the People's Bank of China. That was slightly below the estimate of 9.6-percent growth in the Reuters poll.

Meanwhile, the country's outstanding total social financing (TSF), a broad measure of credit and liquidity in the economy, rose 12.3 by percent to 294.6 trillion yuan at the end of March from a year earlier.

In March alone, TSF rose to 3.34 trillion yuan from 1.71 trillion yuan in February.