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Payments glossary · Singapore

MDR (merchant discount rate)

The percentage of a transaction a merchant pays to accept it. It is not one number: it moves with card present versus not present, debit versus consumer credit versus commercial, and whether the card was issued locally or abroad. A quote given without anyone asking about that mix is a quote that will be revised.

For Uniweb Pay specifically: Uniweb Pay quotes rates per merchant and does not publish them. Several Singapore providers do publish theirs, and if comparing public rate cards before speaking to anyone is what you need, that is a real reason to look at them.

Why it matters to a merchant

The number every proposal leads with and the one that predicts a merchant's actual cost least well on its own. Which method the customer used, where their card was issued and what the fixed component is can move the real cost well away from the headline. The rate is worth comparing; it is not worth comparing by itself.

Read more: How to choose a payment acquirer in Singapore

Where this comes up

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Related terms

In this section: What it costs, and what gets measured

Last updated: 2026-08-03

Written by the Uniweb Pay team, Singapore. Licence details are checked against the MAS Financial Institutions Directory, which is the authoritative source — where anything here disagrees with the register, the register wins.