Straits Times wrote a report today about how for each eligible credit card holder in Singapore, they would each on average own 6-7 credit cards. Combine that information with another seemingly unrelated forum post by Mr Kuo How Nam, President of Credit Counselling Singapore, who writes that consumer loans has grown over 18% over the past 3 months compared to just 10% for the previous year, is a worrying trend for the state of debt in this country.

Mr Kuo explains that the sharp increase is probably due to the increase in housing loans figures (which I infer, could be correlated to the rising property prices) which he continues by also highlighting that credit card rollover figures (money that has not been repaid by cardholders and are as such charged typically around 24% per annum) have been growing at an average rate of 11.5% every year for the past two years.

In November 2010, the rollover balance has crossed the $4 billion mark.

Is Singapore moving away from its traditional ‘save for rainy days’ mentality which has helped spurred on the country’s extraordinary economic growth over the past few decades, towards the United States’ style of increasing consumer debt, and subsequently foreclosures and bankruptcy?

Straits Times – Number of credit cards charges past 6 million mark
Straits Times Forum – Personal debt bomb

Image originally from Flickr. Creative Commons License.

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