The People's Bank of China (PBOC), the central bank, said on Friday that the nation's new yuan-denominated lending reached 738.1 billion yuan (117.28 billion U.S. dollars) in January, down 288.2 billion yuan year-on-year.

The lower-than-expected figure for new lending was below the 1-trillion-yuan growth predicted by many economists.

By the end of January, the outstanding broad money supply (M2), which covers cash in circulation and all deposits, rose 12.4 percent year-on-year to 85.58 trillion yuan, the PBOC said in a statement on its website.

M2 growth in January was 1.2 percentage points slower than that seen at the end of last year, according to the statement.

The narrow measure of money supply (M1), which covers cash in circulation plus demand deposits, rose 3.1 percent year-on-year to 26.99 trillion yuan by the end of last month, the statement said.

Gross yuan loans outstanding increased 15 percent year-on-year to 55.53 trillion yuan, slowing 3.5 percentage points from a year earlier and 0.8 percentage points from the end of December last year.

According to the PBOC statement, new yuan-denominated deposits in January fell by 800 billion yuan due to soaring demand for cash during the week-long Spring Festival holiday, compared with a decline of 20 billion during the same period last year.

Gross yuan-denominated deposits outstanding amounted to 80.13 trillion yuan by the end of January, up 12.4 percent year-on-year, although the growth rate was 5 percentage points lower than a year earlier.

Meanwhile, outstanding foreign currency-denominated deposits stood at 289.9 billion U.S. dollars at the end of January, up 28.8 percent year-on-year. New deposits of foreign currency during the month added up to 14.8 billion U.S. dollars year-on-year.

In January, cross-border trade deals settled in yuan reached a value of 128.4 billion yuan, while direct investment in yuan totaled 15.2 billion yuan, said the statement.