Lending by Chinese banks more than doubled month-on-month in August, reversing from a sharp fall in July, the central bank said Wednesday, another sign of stabilisation in the world's second-largest economy.

New loans extended by banks jumped to 948.7 billion yuan ($141.8 billion) last month, up from the 463.6 billion yuan in July, the People's Bank of China (PBoC) said.

The figure was below June's 1.38 trillion but beat a median forecast of 750 billion yuan in a survey by Bloomberg News.

The pick-up in credit growth "will add to the growing sense among investors that the near-term outlook for China's economy is fairly bright", Capital Economics China economist Julian Evans-Pritchard said in a response to the figures.

"With recent data also strengthening, we expect economic growth to strengthen over the remainder of the year."

China's August economic data have shown signs of improvement, with key indicators including both industrial output and retail sales growing at a faster rate compared to July.

In a separate statement, the PBoC said that total social financing -- an alternative measure of credit in the real economy -- also leaped, tripling to 1.47 trillion yuan in August from 487.9 billion yuan in July.

The figure also beat Bloomberg's median forecast of 900 billion yuan.

China is a key driver of the world economy but grew at its slowest rate in a quarter of a century last year, and has decelerated further since then.

It has been struggling between the risk of a credit binge and the need to boost its economic performance.

Analysts believe China's credit growth is likely to slow down.

"Credit growth is still likely to slow over coming months as the PBOC refrains from further easing and focuses more on credit risks," Evans-Pritchard said.

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