China banks' total social financing reached RMB1.07t in February

But it's down from monthly record high of RMB 2.54tn in January.

According to Barclays, Feb TSF was RMB 1.07tn, down from monthly record high of RMB 2.54tn in Jan-13, but better than RMB 1.04tn in Feb-12. The sequentially lower TSF was largely driven by the big swing in bank acceptance (a decline of RMB 184bn in Feb vs. increase of RMB 581bn in Jan) and seasonally softer new loan growth.

Here's more from Barclays:

Other non-bank lending continued to be strong led by trust loans (+RMB 182bn m/m) and entrusted loans (+RMB 143bn m/m). The TSF had peaked on a monthly basis in Jan.

Taking out of the seasonality effect, TSF was still quite strong, at RMB 3.61tn in 2M13 (vs. RMB2.02tn in 2M12), mainly driven by non-bank financing (45% of TSF in 2M13 vs. 26% of TSF in 2M12).

Softer Feb new loans driven by less demand from small and micro business
New RMB loans in Feb amounted to RMB 620bn (vs. RMB 1.07tn in Jan), below market consensus of RMB 750bn. The lower new loan growth was mainly driven by ST retail loans (drop of RMB 17bn in Feb vs. RMB 203bn in Jan), which may be partly due to: 1) the one-week long CNY holiday; and 2) less loan demand from small and micro businesses during CNY.

In the loan breakdown, MLT new corporate loan was quite strong, and sequentially stable at RMB 283bn (vs. RMB 310bn), indicating strong activities for investment projects, in our view. MLT new retail loan was able to stay comparatively stable with an m/m increase of RMB 138bn (vs. RMB 268bn in Jan).

MLT new bond was RMB 113bn (vs. RMB 163bn in Jan). Discounted bill stopped its 5-month successive declining trend, and recorded a small increase of RMB 18bn (vs. -RMB 34bn in Jan).

Stable deposit growth despite CNY holiday
Feb new deposits amounted to RMB 774bn (RMB 1.11tn in Jan-13), quite stable comparing to Jan-12 (where CNY falls in) when new deposits dropping by RMB 800bn. We believe the stable growth was likely supported by recent strong foreign currency inflow represented by growing FX purchase by PBOC.

Structure wise, we see seasonal flow from corporate deposits (-RMB 939bn) to retail deposits (+RMB 1.77tn). Meanwhile, new fiscal deposit increased by RMB 25bn (down from seasonal growth of RMB 335bn in Jan-13 due to tax income).

Money supply indicators M0, M1 and M2 at end-Feb 2013 were RMB 6.03tn, RMB 29.6tn and RMB 99.9tn, up 17.2%, 9.5% and 15.2% y/y respectively, stronger than expected.