Singapore firms are more likely than the regional average to experience a customer default, even though their payment terms and delays run shorter than most of Asia Pacific, according to Coface's APAC Payment Survey 2026, a gap the survey traces back to how slowly businesses act on early warning signs.

Some 57% of Singapore firms experienced at least one customer default in the past year, against 45% across APAC, despite Singapore's average payment delay of 66.3 days sitting below the regional average of 68.1 days. Nearly half (49%) of firms reported payment delays becoming more frequent over the past year, more than twice the 21% that saw an improvement.

The findings follow a broader regional pattern of extending payment cycles. Singapore was among the biggest contributors, alongside China, to a recent rise in Asia-wide working capital requirements, as companies extend more credit to trading partners under sustained demand pressure.

Construction stood out for the longest delays, averaging 85 days against Singapore's 66.3-day norm, even as the Building and Construction Authority forecasts demand reaching between SGD47 billion and SGD53 billion this year. Longer project chains and higher work volumes increase working-capital exposure across contractors and subcontractors, the survey noted.

The more striking finding for brokers is behavioural: 84% of Singapore firms said relationship considerations can outweigh financial warning signs, and 65% wait until delays exceed 60 days before tightening credit terms, compared with 47% across APAC.

Coface Singapore chief executive Grishma Kewada said "trust should be complemented by current and objective information," noting that a customer's payment history alone may not reflect the pressure it is currently under.

For trade credit brokers, that gap between relationship-based tolerance and objective risk signals is a concrete opening: clients relying on long-standing customer relationships to judge creditworthiness, particularly in construction and other longer-payment-chain sectors, are the ones survey data suggests are least likely to catch a default coming until it has already happened.