China injects $57.2b liquidity into market via MLF in Feb

BEIJING - China's central bank on Wednesday announced lending worth 393.5 billion yuan ($57.2 billion) in February via the medium-term lending facility (MLF) to keep liquidity basically stable.

The MLF operation includes 150 billion yuan that will mature in six months and 243.5 billion yuan that will mature in one year, according to the People's Bank of China (PBOC).

The interest rates stood at 2.95 percent for the six-month MLF and 3.1 percent for the one-year MLF.

The total outstanding MLF loans stood at 3.76 trillion yuan at the end of February.

The MLF tool was first introduced in 2014 to help commercial and policy banks maintain liquidity by allowing them to borrow from the central bank by using securities as collateral.

The central bank has increasingly relied on open-market operations for liquidity, rather than cuts in interest rates or reserve requirement ratios to maintain prudent monetary policy.

In addition to the MLF, standing lending facilities (SLF) were also used in February.

A total of 20.353 billion yuan was granted in February to financial institutions via SLF to meet provisional liquidity demand.

China's central bank reiterated in a report February that it would implement a prudent and neutral monetary policy while keeping liquidity stable.

The market has accommodated to the changing scales and yields of bidding, which will help reinforce the function of supply and demand in the determination of value in the future, according to the central bank.