If your creditor agrees to you making reduced payments, it’ll affect your credit rating. If you’re paying less than the full payment you originally agreed each month this will be recorded on your credit file and may make it harder to get credit in future. Eventually, your account may default.
Often, creditors will only agree to reduced payments for a set period, typically six months at a time. At the end of this period they’ll want an update on your situation. They may decide to not agree to reduced payments, and this could lead to your creditors passing your debt to a collection agency, or even taking court action.
Some creditors may agree to long-term reductions in your payments by offering to refinance your debt. In effect, this means giving you a new loan to pay off your existing debt spread over a longer time.
The advantage of this for you is that it may have less impact on your credit rating, because there won’t be an ongoing record of making reduced payments. But the disadvantage is that you’ll almost always pay back more in the long run.