South Korea’s major banks raised interest rates on newly issued small and medium-sized enterprise loans across the board during June-August compared with the previous three months. The lower bounds on high-demand collateralized SME loans also increased, raising borrowing burdens for businesses. The development came as the five major commercial banks’ loan-deposit spread widened again after six months, with rising market rates and regulatory caps on household loan growth pushing lending rates up faster than deposit rates, Korea Federation of Banks data showed.