Merchant Acquisition (licensed activity)
The activity, named in a Payment Services Act licence, of accepting card and wallet payments on a merchant’s behalf. It is the specific permission a merchant should look for when checking a provider in the MAS register — a company licensed for money transfer or e-money issuance is licensed, and not for this. Licensed scope describes what an institution may do, not what it sells.
For Uniweb Pay specifically: Uniweb Pte Ltd’s licence names Merchant Acquisition in its scope, alongside Domestic Money Transfer and Cross-border Money Transfer. What this site publishes as a merchant service is acquiring, settled in SGD; do not read the other two as published products.
Why it matters to a merchant
This is the phrase to look for on the register, because it is the activity — not the company size, not the brand — that determines whether a provider may hold a merchant's account and settle to them. A licensed institution whose permissions cover something else entirely is still a licensed institution, and still not authorised to do this.
Read more: How to check a payment provider is actually licensed
Where this comes up
Pages on this site that deal with this in context:
Related terms
In this section: Licensing and regulation in Singapore