SEOUL, Feb. 14 (Xinhua) -- Delinquency ratio for bank loans in South Korea fell sharply in December as banks rushed to resolve delinquent debts at the last month of the year, financial watchdog data showed on Thursday.

Delinquent bank loan, overdue at least one month, stood at 0.4 percent of the total as of end-December, down 0.2 percentage points from a month earlier, according to the Financial Supervisory Service (FSS).

The reduction came as banks resolved delinquent loan worth 4.4 trillion won (3.9 billion U.S. dollars) to clean books by the year end, reducing the total delinquent loan to 6.5 trillion won (5.8 billion U.S. dollars).

Bad debt ratio for corporate loan shrank 0.33 percentage points over the month to 0.53 percent as of end-December.

The delinquency ratio for household debts shed 0.03 percentage points to 0.26 percent in the same period. Enditem