Debt threat: Extremely delayed credit card payments on the rise in Singapore

The number of late payers jumped 18% in Q3.

The number of individuals who had missed two months or more of their credit card payments climbed to 94,950 in September 2015, the Monetary Authority of Singapore's (MAS) Financial Stability Review revealed today.

This marks an 18% increase compared to 80,390 late payers in the same period last year.

"Some households are facing difficulties paying off their unsecured debts. Interest rates on unsecured credit are significantly higher than that of housing loans and outstanding balances could build up quickly unless the debt is paid off or restructured," said the report.

Credit card charge-off rates, which had remained largely stable since 2010, increased to 6.2% in Q3 2015, from 5.4% a year ago

Despite this MAS estimates that the number of borrowers with high outstanding unsecured debt, or those whose unpaid unsecured debt exceeds 24 times of their monthly income, has nearly halved from 32,000 in February 2015 to 18,000 in September 2015.

"MAS encourages borrowers to work actively with their FIs to restructure their unsecured debts if they need help with managing their debt repayments,” said the MAS.