Bloomberg Mongolia reported that the deficit of the nation's commercial banks increased by 16 billion MNT in April. Commercial banks have been operating with deficits since the start of the year. According to Bloomberg's report, commercial banks have said that their assets have been increasing over the past five years, reaching 22.2 trillion MNT. The banks reported that since the issuance of the five percent annual interest rate mortgage loan program launched in March, loan volume has reached 11.5 trillion MNT, its highest level in the last four months. However, loan issuance decreased starting in April, dropping to 11.3 trillion MNT. The volume of non-performing loans also increased in April, reaching 833.9 billion MNT, according to data from Mongol Bank. Mongolia's banks report that the amount of non-performing loans has been increasing in the last five months.