China banks to repay more customers after protests

People holding banners and chanting slogans during a protest last month at the entrance to a branch of China's central bank in Zhengzhou, Henan province. - AP

BEIJING (AFP): Chinese regulators on Friday offered repayments to more customers of rural banks whose withdrawals were frozen, in the ongoing saga of one of the country's biggest-ever banking scandals that triggered rare mass protests.

China's rural banking sector has been hit hard by Beijing's efforts to rein in a property bubble and spiralling debt, in a financial crackdown that has had ripple effects across the world's second-largest economy.