Chinese banks sold 250.4 billion U.S. dollars' worth of foreign currencies to individuals and institutions, and bought 206.9 billion U.S. dollars from them, resulting in a net sale of 43.5 billion last month, data from the State Administration of Foreign Exchange said on Thursday.

The forex settlement deficit came in at 192.3 billion U.S. dollars in the first eight months of 2015.

Forex settlement is one of the main sources of cash to the forex reserves, which declined by 93.9 billion U.S. dollars in August, the fourth-consecutive monthly drop.