By Francis Chan

SINGAPORE credit card users are using their plastic more prudently than before, even as the recession bites.

New figures show credit card delinquency - bills not paid on time - falling, despite the onset of hard times.

In fact, new card applications, 'revolving' credit totals and card balances are all down as well. Revolving credit is where a cardholder pays only part of his credit card bill and rolls the rest over to be paid later.

The latest findings, released by the Credit Bureau Singapore (CBS) yesterday, showed credit card delinquency was lower in April this year than last December.

The local consumer credit data bureau said that as at April 30, 1.3 per cent of cardholders here had a delinquent credit card account that is 30 days or more overdue. That was down from 1.7 per cent as at Dec 31.

The percentage of cardholders with a delinquent account that had been closed with an outstanding balance left unpaid also dipped to 5.9 per cent in April, from 6.4 per cent last December.

CBS executive director William Lim said it was a good sign that account delinquency here is trending down despite the tough economic times.

'Responsible use of credit appears to be causing consumers to rein in their use of plastic and to maintain lower bad debt levels,' he said.

The bureau's latest industry statistics, which covers credit card trends of about one million individual card users here, also showed that the average monthly balance owed had fallen.

Mr Lim said the monthly average balance held by cardholders in the first four months of this year has also dropped by 1per cent, compared with the same period last year.

As at April, the one million credit card holders whose credit data were surveyed had an average credit card balance of $4,385, down from $4,682 in December last year.

The CBS figures also disclosed a fall in 'credit hunger'. The number of inquiries about credit card applications processed by CBS in the first quarter of this year fell by 12.9 per cent to 189,408 compared with the same period last year.

In another sign of responsible handling of personal finances, the percentage of cardholders who revolved at least one of their credit card accounts dipped to 36.7 per cent in April from 39 per cent at the start of the financial crisis in October.

Most credit card users here say that the financial pressure brought on by the recession is no reason to abandon good spending habits.

'Recession or not, I would not want to incur the late fees or additional interest charged by banks, so I always make sure my bills are fully paid on time, and more importantly, I spend within my means,' said Ms Grace Lin, 26.

Mr Dave Goh, 36, said: 'I usually try not to roll over my credit card debt but when I have to, like when I recently had to pay the deposit for a new car, I made sure I paid for it the very next month to avoid paying the high interest.'

The data used in the analysis was derived from CBS' ever-growing list of members - comprising most of the key players in the retail credit sector such as OCBC Bank and Singapura Finance.

Last week, CBS accepted Indonesian bank BNI as its first associate member - a new category of membership.

BNI joins 19 other banks and financial institutions in sharing the bureau's repository of consumer credit information.

Last month, finance company GE Money also joined CBS, following the changes under the Moneylenders Act earlier this year which now allows people earning between $20,000 and $30,000 a year to, for the first time, get access to unsecured loans.

This article was first published in The Straits Times.