Audrey Chia, D&B Singapore's chief executive officer, said the full impact of payment delays was more greatly felt in Q3 compared with the previous quarter as businesses continued to face cash flow woes.
However, SCCB is seeing more businesses making concerted efforts to fulfil their debt obligations partially. While prompt payments have hit an all-time low, SCCB has seen an increase in partial payments being made by businesses over the previous quarter, she said. The construction sector saw the largest quarter-on-quarter increase in payment delays - which accounted for more than half of total payment transactions. Slow payments rose q-o-q to 56 per cent in Q3, from 52 per cent in Q2 and 46.9 per cent a year ago.
Slow payments for the retail sector dropped to 42.3 per cent in Q3, from 51.2 per cent in Q2. However, slow payments"climbed significantly" from 34.5 per cent in 2019.