The bullish Shanghai stock market has snared part of residents' bank savings, and the city's overseas and foreign banks have reported rapid growth in their yuan business, the Shanghai Statistics Bureau said in a report yesterday.

In the first nine months, the Shanghai Stock Exchange accumulated a turnover of up to 30.45 trillion yuan (US$4.06 trillion), a jump of 4.1 times from the same period last year.

Share trading climbed 5.7 times to 24.42 trillion yuan, and mutual funds advanced 5.9 times to 255.1 billion yuan.

Listed companies collected more than 360.8 billion yuan from various share sales in the market through September, a fivefold boost from a year earlier.

"The surge of funds into the stock market comes with an obvious reduction in people's bank savings," said Fan Shaoqing, a spokesman with the bureau. "Besides, more people have also chosen to open current accounts over fixed ones."

Through the third quarter, individual savings at banks in Shanghai totalled 922.07 billion yuan, a drop of 23.33 billion yuan from last year.

Fixed accounts totaled 623.05 billion yuan, 44.5 billion yuan less than last year while current accounts stood at 299 billion yuan, a jump of 21.1 billion yuan from a year earlier.

Meanwhile foreign banks in Shanghai have grown their yuan business quickly, said Fan.

Deposit accounts in the city's overseas and foreign banks grew 26.71 billion yuan to 179.7 billion yuan through the third quarter while loans surged 75.05 billion yuan to 338.55 billion yuan.

(Shanghai Daily November 7, 2007)