A woman passes by information on a bank's loan programs at a lender in Seoul, March 13. Yonhap

Banks' loan rate remained unchanged in March, as the central bank has frozen its key rate for more than a year amid still high inflation, data showed Monday.

The average lending rate of banks applied to new loans last month came to 4.85 percent, unchanged from a month earlier, following a decline for the third straight month, according to the data from the Bank of Korea (BOK).

Early this month, the central bank kept its key rate frozen at 3.5 percent for the 10th straight time.

Banks' household loans fell for the first time in 11 months in March, led by a slowdown in mortgage loan growth.

Banks' lending rate on household loans came to 4.50 percent on average in March, up 0.01 percentage point from a month earlier, according to the BOK.

Their lending rate for corporate loans also slid 0.07 percentage point to 4.963 percent over the cited period, it added.

The rate banks pay for deposits reached 3.58 percent in March, down 0.05 percentage point from the previous month.

The spread on banks' lending and deposit rates widened to 1.27 percentage points last month from 1.22 percentage points in February, the BOK data showed. (Yonhap)