Chart of the Day: Payment delinquency falls to 12-month low

Payment performance of local firms has improved across the board in the first quarter.

Dun & Bradstreet Singapore reported:

As the local economy contends with the Eurozone sovereign-debt crisis and continued restrained growth prospects in the US, recovery remains sluggish and is likely to be muted for the rest of the year. However, payment performance of local firms showed positive signs of change in the first quarter of 2012 as slow payments bottomed out to its lowest level in 12 months.

According to the Singapore Commercial Credit Bureau’s latest analysis, overall slow payments dipped by 6.2 percentage points to 41.9 per cent compared to the previous month. A year-on-year comparison further revealed that slow payments contracted by 0.6 percentage points to a 12-month low, after sequential increases month-on-month.

Moving in the opposite direction, overall payment promptness came in modestly higher after a poor showing in the previous quarter, rebounding 5.1 percentage points to 44.6 per cent. However, year-on-year payment promptness was less bullish, up by a mere 0.36 percentage points, pointing towards moderated growth and prevailing macroeconomic downside risks in the months to come.