The Bank of Japan announced on Wednesday that the total value of bank lending in the country had seen a year-on-year increase of 3.2 percent in March, reaching a staggering 619.566 trillion yen. This surge surpassed expectations, which projected a rise of 3.1 percent, and significantly outperformed February's growth of 3.0 percent.
In the first quarter of 2024, the total lending from banks rose 3.1 percent compared to the same period in the previous year. When excluding trusts from the equation, the annual lending growth reached 3.6 percent, totaling 542.181 trillion yen. Meanwhile, lending from trusts experienced a rather modest 0.4 percent annual increase, bringing the value to 77.384 trillion yen.
Remarkably, lending from foreign banks saw an explosive year-on-year growth of 25.4 percent to 5.322 trillion yen, and a robust rise of 21.2 percent in the first quarter of the year alone.
