Chinese banks made 1.05 trillion yuan ($168.8 billion) of new yuan loans in March, a drop of 557.6 billion yuan year-on-year, central bank data showed on Tuesday.

The broad M2 money supply grew 12.1 percent last month from a year earlier, according to the People's Bank of China. The outstanding M2 supply reached 116.07 trillion yuan. The growth rate was down 1.2 percent from the end of February and 1.5 percent from the end of last year.

Total social financing, a broader measurement of credit in the economy, rose to 2.07 trillion yuan in March from 938.7 billion yuan in February.

Outstanding yuan loans rose 13.9 percent from a year earlier, reaching 73.91 trillion yuan. Outstanding foreign exchange loans rose 13.7 percent year-on-year to 80.12 trillion yuan, the bank reported.

China's foreign exchange reserves, the world's largest, rose to $3.95 trillion at the end of the first quarter, from $3.82 trillion at the end of the previous quarter.

Turnover in China's interbank renminbi market totaled 53.07 trillion yuan, and daily turnover shrank by 24 percent from the previous year to 884.5 billion yuan.

The weighted average of the interbank interest rate was 2.49 percent in March, 0.52 percent lower than in February.

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