Finance1 min read

Singapore closes car loan loophole by extending financing curbs to individually owned private-hire cars

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In short

The policy applies directly to individuals and sole proprietors taking loans through financial institutions or moneylenders starting October 30. Borrowers face financing limits capped at 60 or 70 percent based on vehicle market value, alongside a maximum seven-year repayment period. To avoid raising rental expenses for full-time drivers and increasing passenger fares, authorities opted not to establish a separate certificate of entitlement category for fleet companies.

Key points

  • Commercial vehicles, business-owned private-hire fleets, and motorcycles remain fully exe…: Commercial vehicles, business-owned private-hire fleets, and motorcycles remain fully exempt from the new borrowing restrictions.
  • Officials rejected a dedicated certificate of entitlement category to prevent inflating d…: Officials rejected a dedicated certificate of entitlement category to prevent inflating driver rentals and commuter fares.
  • Regulators plan to monitor market activities and could introduce further measures to addr…: Regulators plan to monitor market activities and could introduce further measures to address non-compliant in-house loan structures.

Sources checked by our analysis pipeline: 1

The new restrictions come amid concerns that some buyers may have been taking advantage of an exemption meant for commercial vehicles, despite having no intention of providing private-hire services.

SINGAPORE: Individuals buying vehicles registered as private-hire cars (PHCs) will be subject to the same loan restrictions as private car buyers from Friday (Oct 30), closing a potential loophole that some motorists may have used to secure more generous financing terms.

The move comes amid concerns that some buyers may have been taking advantage of an exemption meant for commercial vehicles, despite having no intention of providing private-hire services.

In a media release on Thursday, authorities said there had been a recent surge in registrations of individually owned self-drive PHCs, with about 500 such vehicles registered each month.

This "suggests that some may be doing so primarily to access more permissive financing terms", the Ministry of Transport, Monetary Authority of Singapore, Ministry of Energy, Trade and Industry and Ministry of Law said in a joint media release.

Under the new rules, individuals purchasing PHCs with an open market value (OMV) of…

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