In accordance with Announcement of the People’s Bank of China No. 15 [2019], starting from August 20, 2019, the loan prime rate is calculated under the new formation mechanism.

Based on the quotes made by quoting banks by adding a few basis points to the interest rate of open market operations (mainly referring to the rate of the medium-term lending facility, or MLF), the LPR is calculated by the National Interbank Funding Center (NIFC), serving as the pricing reference for bank lending. Currently, the LPR consists of rates with two maturities, i.e. one year and over five years.

At present, the LPR quoting banks are comprised of 20 banks. The quoting banks will submit their quotes before 9:00 a.m. on the 20th day of every month (postponed in case of holidays), with 0.05 percentage points as step length, to the NIFC. The NIFC will calculate the arithmetic average of rates after excluding the highest and lowest ones, and find its nearest integral multiple of 0.05% to be the LPR, which will then be published at 9:15 a.m. on the same day. The public can look up the rate on the websites of the NIFC and the PBC.