March LPR quotes announced, remaining unchanged for 10 consecutive months

China Fund Journalist Chenxi

On March 20, the People’s Bank of China authorized the National Interbank Funding Center to announce that the Loan Prime Rate (LPR) on March 20, 2026, is: the 1-year LPR is 3.0%, and the 5-year and above LPR is 3.5%. The above LPR will be effective until the next LPR is announced.

This is the first time the LPR has remained unchanged for 10 consecutive months since June 2025.

The Loan Prime Rate (LPR) is quoted by various quoting banks based on the public market operation interest rate plus a spread, and is calculated by the National Interbank Funding Center, providing a pricing reference for bank loans. Currently, the LPR includes two varieties: the 1-year term and the 5-year and above term. The current quoting banks for the LPR include 20 banks.

On March 18, the Party Committee of the People’s Bank of China held an expanded meeting. The meeting mentioned the continued implementation of a moderately loose monetary policy. It emphasized promoting stable economic growth and a reasonable recovery in prices as important considerations for monetary policy, leveraging the integrated effects of incremental policies, stock policies, monetary policies, and fiscal policies.

Comprehensively using monetary policy tools such as the reserve requirement ratio, buying and selling government bonds, Medium-term Lending Facility (MLF), and reverse repos, to maintain ample liquidity, ensuring that the growth of social financing scale and money supply aligns with economic growth and overall price level expectations. According to changes in economic financial conditions and macroeconomic operations, guiding and adjusting the interest rate level, strengthening the execution and supervision of interest rate policies, regulating financing intermediary costs, and promoting the low-level operation of the comprehensive financing costs in society.

In January of this year, the central bank announced a reduction of 0.25 percentage points in the interest rates of various structural monetary policy tools, with the one-year rate of various relending types falling to 1.25%, and other term rates adjusted simultaneously.

Dongfang Jincheng believes that after the early-year structural monetary policy tools initiated interest rate cuts, a comprehensive policy rate cut may occur in the second quarter, which will drive a follow-up adjustment in the LPR quotation, thereby guiding the decline of loan interest rates for enterprises and residents.

CITIC Securities Chief Economist Mingming recently stated that in 2026, there is room for “flexible and efficient use” of reserve requirement cuts and interest rate reductions, expecting a total of 1-2 interest rate cuts and 1 reserve requirement cut throughout the year, with structural tools playing a greater role.

Editor: Zhao Xinliang

Proofreader: Qiao Yi

Production: Xiao Mo

Reviewer: Chen Mo