The delinquency rate of loans extended by South Korean banks, including household lending, fell in March from a month earlier, the financial watchdog said Monday.

The combined delinquency rate of bank loans stood at 0.69 percent at the end of March, down 0.08 percentage point from a month ago, according to the Financial Supervisory Service.

The decline came as the amount of cleared bad debts worth 2.5 trillion won ($2.3 billion) outpaced fresh bad loans worth 1.4 trillion won during March.

The delinquency rate of both corporate and household loans decreased. The overdue rate for corporate loans fell 0.08 percentage point to 0.86 percent, with household loans retreating 0.09 percentage point to 0.48 percent.

The outstanding amount of won-dominated loans reached 1,278.3 trillion won as of end-March, up 4.6 trillion won, or 0.4 percent, from the previous month.

Those extended to households reached 526.1 trillion won, up 4 trillion won over the cited period, while corporate loans added 1.6 trillion won to 720.8 trillion won, the FSS said. (Yonhap)