BEIJING, July 9 -- Shenzhen banks Monday denied a widely circulated rumor that the city's commercial banks had more than 100 billion yuan (14.29 billion U.S. dollars) of bad loans in the property market, and said the bad loans accounted for only 0.67 percent of the total volume.

    "It (the rumor) is ridiculous! Think about it -- the 100 billion yuan means nearly 50 percent of the home mortgage portfolio of Shenzhen banks were bad loans. That's absolutely impossible," yesterday's Shenzhen Economic Daily quoted a manager who is in charge in an unnamed commercial bank's mortgage division as saying.

    The city's banks have a total of only 220 billion yuan in mortgage assets, the bank manager said. He refused to give his name.

    However, he admitted that the bad loans had increased 11 million yuan in May compared to January, up 0.02 percent, the Daily said. >> Full Article