China's banking industry is expected to maintain stable growth, with commercial banks' assets expected to expand 10 percent and rising trends of nonperforming loan (NPL) rates expected to slow, said a report released by the China Banking Association (CBA).

Thanks to stable currency supplies, the assets and liabilities of China's commercial banks will grow at a pace of around 10 percent, the Xinhua News Agency reported Friday, citing data from the CBA.

Total assets of domestic commercial banks reached 181.7 trillion yuan ($27 trillion) as of the end of 2016, up 16.6 percent year-on-year, domestic news site cnr.cn reported, citing data from the report. Meanwhile, commercial banks' asset quality was mostly stable last year, with NPL rates at 1.74 percent, up 0.07 percentage points year-on-year, it said.

However, domestic banks are still facing pressure from asset quality, with NPLs expected to grow slightly, the report continued.

Industry insiders forecast that the overall NPL rate of domestic banks will stay below 2 percent this year, which is still a low level, according to cnr.cn.

The industry and regional characteristics of NPLs are changing, the report said, citing Lian Ping, chief economist at the Bank of Communications. For example, risks of NPLs appearing in small and micro companies as well as the steel industry in East China's Jiangsu and Zhejiang provinces three or four years ago have been brought under control. Meanwhile, new risks in China's central and western regions as well as in large- and medium-sized firms emerge, he said.