THE economic downturn that hit Singapore in the third quarter of this year has not quite hurt consumers' ability to make credit card payments and personal loans yet, according to figures just released by Credit Bureau Singapore.

In the third quarter, a monthly average of 1.43 per cent of consumers missed at least one payment on one or more of their credit card accounts, compared with 1.37 per cent in the second quarter this year and 1.29 per cent in the third quarter of last year.

Despite the slight rise, credit card delinquencies in the third quarter remained 'significantly lower' than the delinquency experienced during the aftermath of the Sars downturn, which peaked at 2.66 per cent in Feb 2004.