The delinquency rate for loans extended by South Korean banks edged up in November from a month earlier due to a rise in soured loans taken out by large firms, the financial watchdog said Tuesday.

The average delinquency rate for bank loans stood at 0.74 percent at the end of November, up 0.04 percentage point from a month earlier, according to the Financial Supervisory Service.

From a year earlier, however, the figure dropped 0.15 percentage point, it noted.

Loans with both the principal and interest overdue by one month or more are considered delinquent.

The increase came as 1.8 trillion won ($1.54 billion) worth of loans turned sour last month, while 1 trillion won in debt was written off, according to the regulator.

The overall overdue rate of corporate loans gained 0.07 percentage point on-month to 0.99 percent in November, with the rate for big firms rising 0.1 percentage point to 1.02 percent and that for smaller firms edging up 0.05 percentage point to 0.98 percent.

The delinquency rate for household loans stood at 0.42 percent in November, up 0.02 percentage point from the previous month.

The outstanding amount of won-denominated loans stood at 1,351.9 trillion won as of end-November, up 11.4 trillion won, or 0.8 percent, from the previous month.

Those extended to households reached 555.5 trillion won, up 6.4 trillion won over the cited period, while corporate loans rose 9.6 trillion won to 766.7 trillion won, according to the watchdog. (Yonhap)