Chinese regulators said the finances of foreign banks in the country are sound, a message that appeared aimed at reassuring local banks that have been reluctant to lend to their foreign counterparts because of concerns about the U.S. financial crisis. The China Banking Regulatory Commission said in a statement on Friday that the Chinese operations of foreign banks it monitors have "healthy fundamentals, good asset quality as well as adequate provisions, liquidity and capital bases." It noted that foreign institutions currently have an average ratio of nonperforming loans of 0.52% of total loans, and that their capital-adequacy ratio averages 16.9%. Those numbers compare favorably with most recent reports about China's domestic banks.