Chinese banks ease mortgage burden for epidemic-hit borrowers

China's five major state-owned banks have adopted a slew of measures to ease the residential mortgage burden for individual borrowers affected by the COVID-19 epidemic.

These steps include postponing mortgage repayments, extending repayment periods, as well as deferring principal and interest repayments on housing loans, the banks told Xinhua.

Bank of China has urged its branches to better meet the demand from regions severely hit by the epidemic, such as Jilin and Shanghai, and pledged more financial support for the key groups, including those who have temporarily lost their income due to the epidemic.

China Construction Bank said it had deferred the repayments for about 1 million households by the end of March, involving over 430 billion yuan (about 67.55 billion U.S. dollars) worth of mortgages.

Currently, the overall residential mortgage assets in China are of high quality and stability, with the non-performing rate remaining low, according to the Bank of Communications.

China's five state-owned banks are the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, Agricultural Bank of China, Bank of China, China Construction Bank and Bank of Communications.