Banks' applications for a People's Bank of China stock-purchase loan scheme has exceeded 200 billion yuan (HK$234.93 billion), the central bank said on Wednesday.
The PBOC has intensified the implementation of share buyback and increased re-lending policies to maintain stable capital market operations, it said.
The interest rate on re-lending for share buybacks and share acquisitions will be reduced by 0.25 percentage points to 1 percent from Wednesday, the bank said.
"Banks may add a reasonable spread to the re-lending rate to determine the term and interest rate of the stock repurchase and share acquisition loans," the PBOC said, so as to accelerate loan disbursement and enhance market capitalisation of listed companies and their major shareholders.
The PBOC and financial and securities regulators had convened major banks on Monday to discuss optimising the re-lending policy.
Reuters
