China's top banks triple debt writeoffs.

China's five largest banks wrote off 22.1B yuan ($3.65B) of debt in H1, triple the amount of a year earlier, as they prepared for what may be a new wave of defaults. "The banks and the regulators' interests are aligned in speeding up write-offs," says analyst Ma Kunpeng. "This prepares them for a rainy day." The news was among the factors that helped Chinese shares drop 1.25%.