OCBC positive on repayment of SME loans in Singapore, but on the watch for Malaysia, Indonesia

OCBC is not seeing any cause for concern on the repayment of loans among small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in Singapore even as Covid-19 relief measures get extended further, but it is "definitely watching" neighbouring countries Malaysia and Indonesia closely for signs of business distress, said a top OCBC executive.

Linus Goh, OCBC's head of global commercial banking, told The Business Times that repayment trends in Singapore have been "quite positive", with the numbers that are still under moratorium a "very small proportion of the SME base".

Those that need to have extensions beyond the current moratorium programmes are "so far just only trickling in", he noted. "I won't worry too much about that, relative to the region."