Singapore firms' bill payment improves in fourth quarter

Singapore

LOCAL firms' payment of bills improved in Q4 2014 after three consecutive quarters of decline, the Singapore Commercial Credit Bureau's (SCCB) latest quarterly report released on Tuesday showed. Overall prompt payments - cases where at least 90 per cent of total bills are paid within the agreed terms - climbed 4.1 percentage points to 50.07 per cent in the last quarter of 2014, reversing a downtrend seen since the first quarter.

Slow payments - cases where more than half of total bills are paid later than the agreed credit terms - slipped by 3.03 percentage points to 38.89 per cent in Q4 2014, marking a level below the 40 per cent mark, compared to Q3 2014 when more than two-fifths of payment transactions were overdue.