SINGAPORE (THE BUSINESS TIMES) - The payment performance of firms in Singapore has shown improvement for the second straight quarter, said the Singapore Commercial Credit Bureau (SCCB) on Tuesday (April 5).
"We are seeing a continued uptrend in the payment performance of local firms in the first quarter of 2022," said SCCB chief executive Audrey Chia. That being said, improvements in payment performance have been marginal compared with the previous quarter.
Prompt payments inched up to 41.1 per cent in the first quarter, from 40.8 per cent in the fourth quarter of 2021, but slid year on year from 42.5 per cent in the year-ago period.
Slow payments continued to decline on a quarterly basis to 44.2 per cent in the first quarter of 2022 from 44.3 per cent in the fourth quarter of last year. Year on year, slow payments increased from 43.1 per cent in the first quarter of 2021.
Prompt payments and slow payments accounted for slightly more than two-fifths of total payment transactions, SCCB noted.
Partial payments, meanwhile, dropped marginally to 14.8 per cent in the first quarter of 2022 from 14.9 per cent in the previous quarter, but rose from the 14.4 per cent recorded in the same period a year ago.
From a sectoral perspective, slow payments declined in three out of five industries - manufacturing, retail and services. Only the manufacturing sector saw a drop in slow payments year on year.
The construction sector continued to account for the highest proportion of payment delays. Slow payments inched up to 56 per cent in the first quarter of 2022, from 55.9 per cent in the fourth quarter of 2021 and 54 per cent in the first quarter of 2021.
Payment delays in the manufacturing sector decreased further in the first quarter of 2022 due to a drop in slow payments by manufacturers of chemicals, transport equipment and electronics. Slow payments dropped to 38.1 per cent, from 38.4 per cent in the previous quarter and 39.1 per cent in the year-ago period.
Slow payments in the retail sector fell moderately to 43.8 per cent in the first quarter from 44.1 per cent in the previous quarter. However, payment delays were higher than the 42.3 per cent recorded in the same period last year.
The services sector posted a slight drop in payment delays to 43.3 per cent from 43.8 per cent in the previous quarter but was higher than the 41.1 per cent recorded the previous year. The business services sector saw the largest decrease in payment delays.
Meanwhile, the wholesale trade sector saw slow payments rise to 39.8 per cent in the first quarter of 2022, from 39.6 per cent in the fourth quarter of 2021 and 39 per cent in the first quarter of 2021. This was due to increased payment delays by wholesalers of both durable and non-durable goods.
Prompt payment refers to when 90 per cent or more of total bills are paid within the agreed payment terms, while slow payment happens when less than 50 per cent of total bills are paid within the agreed terms. Partial payment refers to when between 50 per cent and 90 per cent of total bills are paid within the agreed payment terms.
