BIS international banking statistics at end-March 2016

22 July 2016
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The Bank for International Settlements (BIS) today released international banking statistics for the quarter ending in March 2016.

  • During the first quarter of 2016, the cross-border claims of BIS reporting banks rose by $451 billion to $27.5 trillion. This increase only partially offset the large declines of previous quarters and consequently the annual growth rate remained negative, at -5%.
  • The latest quarterly increase was driven by lending to governments and other non-bank borrowers in Europe, the United States and other advanced economies. In recent quarters, credit to the official sector in advanced economies - ie governments and central banks - has increased noticeably as a proportion of banks' international assets, from 20% at end-September 2014 to 24% at end-March 2016.
  • Notwithstanding the latest quarterly increase, cross-border lending remained weak to those borrowers that had led the slowdown in cross-border banking activity in 2015 (in particular to banks in advanced economies and across all sectors in emerging market economies).
  • Cross-border credit to emerging economies fell by $76 billion, taking the annual pace of decline to -9%. China again experienced a large contraction in cross-border activity, with claims from international banks on mainland residents down by $63 billion during the quarter.

Developments in the latest international banking statistics are summarised in the statistical release, together with charts showing historical data. Additional data are available on the BIS website, where they can be viewed as tables in PDF, browsed in the BIS Statistics Explorer, or searched in the BIS Statistics Warehouse. 

Data are subject to change. Revised data will be released concurrently with the forthcoming BIS Quarterly Review on 18 September 2016. The international banking statistics at end-June 2016 will be released no later than 21 October 2016. 

Queries about the BIS international banking statistics may be directed to statistics@bis.org.