BEIJING - A total of 335.9 billion yuan ($52.86 billion) in petty loans had been issued by China's 3,791 petty loan companies as of September, the country's central bank said Friday.

Inner Mongolia autonomous region topped the list in terms of the number of petty loan companies, followed by Liaoning and Jiangsu provinces, respectively, according to statistics released by the People's Bank of China (PBOC).

In terms of outstanding petty loans, Jiangsu province ranked first with 69.35 billion yuan in outstanding petty loans, followed by Zhejiang and Inner Mongolia, which had 48.65 billion yuan and 29.58 billion yuan, respectively, the PBOC said.

Petty loans hit 287.5 billion yuan from 3,366 companies by the end of June, according to previous statistics from the PBOC.

Petty loans settle enterprise or individual problems with small amounts of short-term, decentralized capital. The loans are an important part of China's credit market as well as a crucial path for private capital to enter the financial sector.