China outstanding total social financing up 10.7 pct y/y at end-March

China's outstanding total social financing (TSF) was 208.41 trillion yuan ($31.03 trillion) at the end of March, up 10.7 percent from a year earlier, the central bank said on Friday. TSF includes off-balance sheet forms of financing that exist outside the conventional bank lending system, such as initial public offerings, loans from trust companies and bond sales.

The People's Bank of China has revised the way it calculates TSF by adding financial institutions' asset-backed securities and loan write-offs. In March, TSF jumped to 2.86 trillion yuan from 703 billion yuan in February.

($1 = 6.7160 Chinese yuan) (Reporting by Lusha Zhang and Beijing Monitoring Desk Editing by Jacqueline Wong)