China provided medium-term funding to banks and cut the interest rate it charges for the money as officials sought to cushion the economy from the coronavirus outbreak.

The People’s Bank of China (PBOC) offered 200 billion yuan (US$28.6 billion) of one-year medium-term loans on Monday. The rate was lowered by 10 basis points to 3.15 per cent.

The central bank also added 100 billion yuan of funds with seven-day reverse repurchase agreements. Some 1 trillion yuan (US$143 billion) of reverse repos are due Monday, resulting in a net 700 billion yuan (US$100 billion) withdrawal.

“The injection is relatively small,” said Becky Liu, head of China macro strategy at Standard Chartered Bank, adding the operation will reduce incentives to chase Chinese government and policy bank bonds. “It means the PBOC does not intend to further lower front-end rates from here. I think rates will stay range bound until further catalysts are there.”


front-end rates = interest rates charged by The People’s Bank of China (PBOC) on one-year medium-term loans TO BANKS

https://www.scmp.com/economy/china-economy/article/3050906/c...

These **interest** rates are probably called "front-end" because that same money is in the next stage used by banks for commercial lending to businesses. So the "front-end" of that chain of lending would be the central bank lending money to commercial banks.

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Note added at 15 hrs (2022-05-03 21:52:58 GMT)
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another clue:

With lending volumes to clients still relatively low, banks have little ability to use these reserves other than to purchase USTs, agencies and other eligible instruments as regulatory-defined High Quality Liquid Assets (HQLA), which in turn has driven down front-end rates for those sectors

https://www.westernasset.com/us/en/research/blog/federal-res...