“The Bank for International Settlements (BIS) today released international banking statistics for the quarter and year ending in December 2015.

• The slowdown in cross-border banking activity that began in early 2015 broadened in the final quarter of the year. Whereas in Q3 2015 this slowdown was most pronounced for interbank activity and lending to emerging market economies (EMEs), in Q4 2015 it spread across sectors, major currencies and regions.
• Cross-border bank credit to EMEs in aggregate contracted by 8% in the year to end-December 2015, the largest annual rate of contraction since 2009. Claims on China fell by $114 billion, the largest drop during the quarter.

Developments in the latest international banking statistics are summarised in the Statistical release, together with charts showing historical data. Additional data are available on the BIS website, where they can be viewed as tables in PDF, browsed in the BIS Statistics Explorer, or searched in the BIS Statistics Warehouse.”