(Yicai) March 12 -- Chinese lenders, including China Construction Bank, Citic Bank, and Minsheng Bank, have cranked up efforts to offload the non-performing loans of individuals amid a sluggish economy that has hampered the ability of borrowers to repay.

Banks disposed of CNY11.2 billion (USD1.6 billion) in personal non-performing loans, including principal and interest, between Feb. 27 and yesterday, according to data from China Central Depositor and Clearing. Credit card overdrafts made up CNY1.9 billion (USD263 million) of the total amount, while the rest was consumer and business loans.

In the entire first quarter of last year, they only offloaded CNY4.3 billion.

The faster pace and increased scale of the disposals are chiefly driven by the economic downturn, which is weighing on borrower creditworthiness and inflating non-performing assets in banking segments such as credit card lending, The Paper yesterday reported Dong Ximiao, chief researcher at Merchants Union Consumer Finance, as saying.

The bad loans offloaded between Feb. 27 and yesterday were sold for CNY632 million, a 94 percent discount on the total outstanding principal and interest, according to the CCDC data.

Ping An Bank announced yesterday that it plans to get rid of about CNY120 million of personal dud loans arising from credit card overdrafts for a little as CNY7 million (USD969,060).

Lenders are aggressively disposing of non-performing assets this year to stabilize their balance sheets, coupled with the fact that these loans are long overdue and hard to recover, according to Lou Feipeng, a researcher at Postal Savings Bank of China.

Editor: Futura Costaglione