Automotive financing steers steady course

Automotive finance companies have grown rapidly in China during the past decade with total assets expanding more than 40 times compared with 2005, a new report said.

By the end of the first quarter of 2014, the amount of 17 automotive finance companies that have opened in China reached 281.9 billion yuan ($45 billion), up from 6 billion yuan in 2005.

During the same period, the finance companies' outstanding wholesale lending to car dealers rose to 66.8 billion yuan from 2.57 billion yuan, and their outstanding retail loans to customers rose to 194.4 billion yuan from 1.28 billion yuan, according to a report of Chinese automotive finance companies released by the AFC Professional Committee of China Banking Association in Beijing on Tuesday.