Credit card usage and personal loans surge amongst Singapore households

They now take up 21% of total household liabilities.

Citing data from the Department of Statistics, a ValuePenguin study noted that the average debt of a Singaporean household is about $54,285 per capita.

Most of this debt is home loans, which comprises of 74.8% of the debt. Motor loans take up 31%.

The study pointed out that the high interest debt like credit cards and personal loans have been the fastest growing debt category, now comprising 21% of total household liabilities.

"In total, household debt has been increasing at around 2.85% in 2016, which is slightly faster than 2.4% we saw in 2015. It’s important to note that this growth rate is meaningfully slower than the average growth rate of 9% that household debt growth saw from 2009 to 2014. However, despite the slight acceleration in debt growth, household balance sheet remained in a good shape as its assets and net worth (asset – liability) grew at an even faster rate," the study stated.