Chart of the Day: See the record tardiness of Singapore's local payments

No thanks to dismal economic growth.

Local commercial payment resiliency weakens further in 2Q on the back of lacklustre local economic growth in the city-state.

In a report, the Singapore Commercial Credit Bureau reveals that for the 1st time since 3Q13, overall payment promptness of local firms has fallen sharply below the 50% mark.

The latest payment statistics from Singapore Commercial Credit Bureau (SCCB) also revealed that overall slow payments have crossed the 40 per cent mark. The Ministry of Trade and Industry (MTI) has recently revised GDP growth estimates for 2014 to be between 2.5 and 3.5 per cent.

According to Singapore Commercial Credit Bureau (SCCB)’s proprietary payment statistics, overall prompt payments have worsened further quarter-on-quarter (q-o-q) as it fell moderately by 4.54 percentage points from 51.92 per cent to 47.38 per cent. Payment promptness have improved slightly as a year-on-year (y-o-y) analysis revealed that it has inched slightly upwards by 0.61 percentage points from 46.77 per cent to 47.38 per cent.

Meanwhile, overall slow payments have increased markedly by 3.22 percentage points from 37.88 per cent to 41.1 per cent q-o-q. However, like prompt payments, overall slow payments have also experienced an on-year dip by 5.04 per cent from 46.14 per cent in the same quarter last year.

Here’s more from SCCB:

Partial payments have experienced a marginal increase q-o-q by 1.32 percentage points from 10.2 per cent to 11.52 per cent. This marked six consecutive quarters of increase in partial payments by local firms since Q1 2013. Partial payments have also increased by 4.43 percentage points from 7.09 percent in Q2 2013.

From a sectoral perspective, slow payments have evidently deteriorated further with all five industries experiencing payment delays in Q2 2014. This stands in some contrast to Q1 2014 when slow payments were seen across 4 of five industries. However, payment performance has improved slightly on a y-o-y basis, with payment delays decreasing across 4 of five industries. According to SCCB, the construction sector is the only industry experiencing an on-year marginal increase in Q2 2014.