The net foreign-exchange rise on the PBOC's balance sheet was 774.8 billion yuan in the first nine months of this year, according to Bloomberg calculations based on central bank data. That's almost 1 trillion yuan less than that of a year earlier.

"The liquidity provided only matched the drop in foreign-exchange positions, the traditional way for base money supply," said Beijing-based Shi Lei, head of fixed-income research at Ping An securities Securities Co, a unit of the nation's second-largest insurance company. "The PBOC will need to continue pumping cash into the system."

The seven-day repo rate, a gauge of interbank funding availability, declined 235 basis points in the first three quarters of this year, the biggest nine-month slide since the 2008 world financial crisis. The rate was 3.28 percent on Friday, data compiled by Bloomberg show. The 10-year sovereign bond yield fell to 3.72 percent on Wednesday, the lowest level since August 2013, according to ChinaBond.com.cn.

"We expect the PBOC to halt repos within the next three months," CICC fixed-income analysts led by Beijing-based Chen Jianheng wrote in a note on Oct 27.

"The PBOC may also use open-market operations to boost money supply in the system. When the yuan's forex positions declined in 2012 and 2013, the PBOC suspended repos and started reverse repos."

The benchmark seven-day repo rate will move between 2.5 and 3 percent in the next three months, according to about 63 percent of 107 respondents to a survey conducted last week by Haitong Securities Co, the nation's second-largest brokerage. That's up from 18 percent of those surveyed in a similar poll a month earlier, when 76 percent of the people predicted a range between 3 and 3.5 percent.

China's economic expansion slowed to 7.3 percent in the third quarter, the slowest pace since 2009, as the housing market plunged. Consumer prices increased 1.6 percent from a year earlier in September, the smallest gain in more than four years.

China's inflation-adjusted three-month repo rate is 2.6 percent, the highest among major economies.

Similar-tenor real interest rates in the United States, Europe and Japan showed negative yields of 1.47 percent, 0.22 percent and 0.82 percent, respectively, David Goldman, a Hong Kong-based strategist at Reorient Financial, wrote in an Oct 27 report.

Aggregate financing, the nation's broadest gauge of credit, came in at 1.05 trillion yuan in September, missing the 1.15 trillion yuan median estimate in a Bloomberg survey.

"Higher real interest rates appear to suppress demand for credit, a strong indication that interest rates are too high," Goldman wrote in an Oct 27 report.

"An appreciating exchange rate and a decline in credit extension are the usual symptoms of excessively tight monetary policy. Both of these tend to depress growth. A modest easing of monetary policy would contribute to foreign exchange rate stability."

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