SHANGHAI banks conducted offshore yuan lending of 66.1 billion yuan (US$10.2 billion) last year, a surge of 119 percent year on year, as they tapped financial reforms to transact more cross-border business, the city's banking regulator said yesterday.

“The expansion of the offshore business paid off after the city pushed forward the pilot free trade zone and encouraged the building of an international innovation and technology center,” Liao Min, head of the China Banking Regulatory Commission Shanghai Office, told a media conference with other financial regulators in Shanghai.

Another piece of good news is that the banking sector's non-performing loans and the bad-loan ratio fell, Liao said.