BEIJING -- New yuan-denominated loans issued by China's micro-credit companies amounted to 161.2 billion yuan ($26.3 billion) in the first three quarters, data from the central bank showed Tuesday.

By the end of September, the number of micro-credit companies in China had risen to 7,398, with total outstanding loans at 753.5 billion yuan, the People's Bank of China said in a statement on its website.

In recent years, micro-lending companies have become an important channel for medium- and small-sized firms as well as individual businesses to access funds.

The central bank report showed east China's Jiangsu province had 555 small-credit companies by September, the most of any provincial-level region, followed by northeast China's Liaoning province and north China's Inner Mongolia autonomous region.