The value of new loans issued by Chinese banks rose in September from the previous month, the central bank said yesterday, as Beijing battles to curb rampant lending. New lending for September reached 595.5 billion yuan ($89.2 billion), up from the 545.2 billion yuan issued in August, according to figures posted on the People’s Bank of China’s website.

For the first nine months of the year, lending reached 6.3 trillion yuan,- 2.36 trillion less than the same period last year, the bank said.

The central bank has ordered six major banks to temporarily increase the amount of money they must keep in reserve as it tries to rein in lending and combat rising inflation, state media reported Tuesday.

Policymakers on Monday hiked the reserve requirement ratio for the six lenders by 50 basis points to 17.5 per cent for two months, the China Securities Journal said, citing unnamed sources.

It is the fourth time this year that China has raised banks’ reserve requirement ratio and comes after new lending last month “significantly exceeded regulators’ expectation”, an unnamed source was quoted as saying.