The narrow measure of money supply (M1), cash in circulation plus current corporate deposits, climbed 14.5 percent from a year earlier to 25.91 trillion yuan.

New yuan-denominated deposits stood at 1.31 trillion yuan in February.

The figure was 333.4 billion yuan more than February last year, said the statement.

The balance of outstanding yuan-denominated deposits rose 17.6 percent year on year to 72.59 trillion yuan by the end of February.

The rise was 0.2 percentage points higher than the rise of January.

February's new loans were 600 billion yuan lower than the market expectations, said Zhou Wenyuan with Guotai & Junan Securities.

Zhou predicted that 2011 new yuan-dominated loans are likely to be less than 7 trillion yuan as the central bank maintains a tight credit control as it tries to soak up liquidity.

New yuan-denominated lending reached 7.95 trillion yuan last year, exceeding government's 7.5-trillion-yuan target ceiling.