# How to accept WeChat Pay and Alipay in Singapore

https://www.uniwebpay.com/guides/accept-wechat-pay-alipay-singapore/

*Last updated: 2026-08-03*

You do not sign up with WeChat or Alipay directly. In Singapore you enable both through a licensed merchant acquirer, which holds your merchant account, accepts the payment on your behalf and settles it to you in Singapore dollars. On most providers it is a line item on an existing merchant account, not a separate contract, a separate device or a separate payout.

**In short**

- You contract with a licensed acquirer, not with the wallets themselves.
- Alipay+ is Alipay’s cross-border gateway: one enablement reaches mainland Alipay users and partner wallets from other Asian markets.
- Both QR directions work — the shopper scans your terminal, or your terminal scans the code on their phone.
- You are paid in SGD, on the same settlement cycle as your card takings.
- Check any provider’s licence in the MAS Financial Institutions Directory before you sign anything.

## Who you actually contract with

You contract with an acquirer. An acquirer is a licensed institution that holds your merchant account, accepts payments on your behalf and settles the money to you. It is the party with the licence, the party your money passes through, and the party you call when something goes wrong.

You do not contract with WeChat Pay or Alipay. Those are the wallets; they connect to merchants through acquirers and payment providers rather than signing up shops one at a time. This surprises people who assume there is a merchant sign-up page somewhere on WeChat, and there is not one for a Singapore business.

In practice this means enabling the Chinese wallets is a conversation with one company. If you already take cards through a Singapore acquirer, ask them what they support. If they do not support Alipay+ or WeChat Pay, that is the reason to look elsewhere — not the rate.

## What Alipay+ covers, and why it is not just Alipay

Alipay+ is Alipay’s cross-border gateway. Enabling it reaches mainland Alipay users and a set of partner wallets from other Asian markets, so a single enablement covers more shoppers than mainland Alipay alone. On your merchant account it appears as one payment method and settles like the rest of them.

That distinction matters at a Singapore counter, where the queue is rarely all from one market. A visitor reaching for a wallet from another Asian market is a sale you would otherwise turn into a card transaction, a cash transaction, or no transaction.

WeChat Pay is enabled separately from Alipay+ but on the same account, and so is UnionPay — which is worth enabling as both a card scheme and a QR rail, because Chinese customers use it both ways.

## What it looks like at the counter

There are two QR directions and you want both. The shopper can scan a code your terminal displays, or you can scan the payment code on their phone with the terminal. Which one happens depends on the customer and on how busy you are; a setup that only supports one direction will slow a queue down.

On a smart terminal this is the same device that takes cards. Uniweb Pay’s is a Sunmi P3: contactless, chip and insert, magnetic stripe and QR wallets on one unit, with thermal receipt printing and 4G or Wi-Fi. Cards, wallets and Dynamic PayNow all run through it.

The practical difference from bolting a wallet arrangement onto a card terminal is that there is one device on the counter, one account behind it, and one reconciliation at the end of the day. Refunds work the same way: search the transaction on the device and void or refund it there, rather than raising a request and waiting.

> **What to check on a demo**
> - Does the same device take a card and a wallet QR, or is there a second box?
> - Can you scan the customer, as well as have them scan you?
> - Can staff void and refund on the device, or does it need a support ticket?
> - Does the receipt print, and does it name the method the customer used?
>

## What you get paid, and when

Singapore dollars, in the same settlement cycle as your card takings. A wallet sale is not a separate payout and not a separate account — with Uniweb Pay it lands in the same T+1 batch, appears in the same merchant portal, and shows on the same daily statement as everything else.

This is worth asking about explicitly, because it is where arrangements differ. A wallet product bolted on beside a card terminal can settle on its own cycle, into its own account, with its own statement — which is three reconciliations instead of one, every day, forever.

Ask any provider three questions: which currency, on what cycle, and into how many accounts. Settlement speed and currency are usually harder to change later than the rate is.

## What you need to apply

Your business registration and the usual KYC and KYB documents a licensed institution has to collect — identification for the people who own and control the business, and evidence of what the business does. There is no self-serve instant signup for a regulated merchant account anywhere in Singapore, and a provider offering one is not doing the checks.

Approval is a document upload and a review. With Uniweb Pay it is days rather than weeks once the documents are in and approved; we do not publish a guaranteed figure, because the honest answer depends on how complete the file is when it arrives.

What slows applications down is almost always the same short list: a business profile that does not match what the website sells, missing identification for a beneficial owner, or a bank account in a name that does not match the registered entity.

## How to check a provider before you sign

Look them up in the regulator’s own register rather than taking the website’s word. Singapore’s Payment Services Act 2019 has two licence tiers — Standard Payment Institution and the higher Major Payment Institution — and the [MAS Financial Institutions Directory](https://eservices.mas.gov.sg/fid) lists which one a company holds and what it is licensed to do.

Merchant acquiring has to be in the licensed scope. A company can hold a payments licence for something else entirely, and "MAS licensed" on a homepage does not tell you which activity is covered.

**Before you sign**

| Ask | Why it matters |
| --- | --- |
| Which licence, which tier? | MPI is the higher of the two Payment Services Act tiers. Check the register, not the marketing page. |
| Is merchant acquiring in scope? | A payments licence can cover money transfer and not acquiring. |
| Which methods sit on one account? | Bolted-on methods mean extra reconciliations, sometimes forever. |
| Which currency, and on what cycle? | Harder to renegotiate later than the rate. |
| Who answers at 8pm on a Saturday? | A terminal that is down on a Saturday is the whole weekend’s takings. |

Uniweb Pte Ltd is a Major Payment Institution, MAS Licence No. PS20200612, with merchant acquisition named in its licensed scope. You can [read the entry in the register](https://eservices.mas.gov.sg/fid/institution/detail/411932-UNIWEB-PTE-LTD) without taking our word for it, and you should do the same for anyone else you are considering.

## What it costs, as far as anyone publishes it

Nobody in this market publishes a rate you can hold them to before underwriting, because the number depends on your card mix, your ticket size and your volume. What does exist is published market commentary: third-party Singapore coverage puts typical merchant discount rates in the range of 1.5%–2.5% — see for example the payments write-up at [trynashi.com](https://www.trynashi.com/blog/wechat-pay-singapore).

That is their figure for the market, not a Uniweb Pay quote. Uniweb Pay quotes rates per merchant and does not publish them. It is a deliberate position rather than an omission, and it has a real cost: if comparing public rate cards before speaking to anyone is what you need, several Singapore providers publish theirs and we do not.

What is worth knowing regardless of provider is what drives the number. Card-present costs less than card-not-present. Consumer credit costs more than debit. A foreign-issued card costs more than a locally issued one — which matters here, because the whole point of enabling Chinese wallets is that your customers are visitors. A quote given without anyone asking about your card mix is a quote that will be revised.

## What the money looks like afterwards

This is the part most guides skip and the part you live with daily. A wallet sale should reconcile the way a card sale does: as a transaction record with an amount, a method and a timestamp, landing in a batch you can tie to a bank credit.

With Uniweb Pay, cards, wallets and Dynamic PayNow settle into one SGD payout in T+1 batches. The merchant portal shows each batch with its fees, the split by payment method against the GMV trend, and every outlet in one view; transactions filter by outlet or method and export to Excel, and daily statements are available as PDF.

The question to put to any provider is narrower than "do you have reporting". It is: can I tie a specific day’s takings to a specific bank credit, and see the fees taken out of it? A provider that settles wallets on a different cycle into a different account cannot, and that is a monthly problem rather than a one-off.

## Are you talking to the acquirer, or to someone selling their licence?

Both arrangements are legitimate and both are common. The acquirer is the licensed institution that holds your merchant account, carries the merchant-side risk and settles the money to you. A reseller sells and services that account on an acquirer’s behalf without holding the licence.

It changes three things concretely: who sets your rate, who decides whether to onboard you, and who can tell you why a payout is late rather than forwarding the question. None of that is disqualifying — but it should be priced in, and it is rarely on the comparison page.

So ask early — is the licence yours? — then check the answer in the register. The full landscape, including the cases where a different shape of provider fits you better than we do, is in [the provider guide](https://www.uniwebpay.com/guides/alipay-wechat-providers-singapore/).

## Where Uniweb Pay fits, and where it does not

Chinese and regional wallet acceptance is what this company was built around. Uniweb Pay has been acquiring in Singapore since 2015, was the first overseas acquirer for Alipay in Singapore, serves over 6,000 merchants, and is among the largest acquirers of Alipay, WeChat Pay and UnionPay in the market. Those wallets sit on the same merchant account and the same device as full card acceptance and Dynamic PayNow.

It is a poor fit in four specific cases, and they are easy to check against your own situation. Settlement is SGD only, so a business that needs USD, EUR or GBP should look elsewhere. The licence and the acquiring are Singapore-based, so merchants trading elsewhere are out of scope. Rates are quoted per merchant rather than published, so if a public rate card is what you need in order to compare, several Singapore providers publish theirs and we do not. And there is no instant self-serve signup, because a licensed institution cannot offer one.

If the first paragraph describes your queue and the second does not describe a blocker, the next step is a conversation rather than a form: [+65 8385 3698](https://wa.me/6583853698) on phone or WhatsApp, in English or Chinese, or Support@uniwebpay.com.

## Questions merchants ask

**Can I accept WeChat Pay in Singapore without a Chinese business entity?**

Yes. You accept it as a Singapore merchant, through a Singapore-licensed acquirer, and you are settled in Singapore dollars. No mainland entity, mainland bank account or mainland registration is involved.

**Do I need a separate terminal for Alipay and WeChat Pay?**

Not with a smart terminal. A Sunmi P3 takes contactless, chip and insert, magnetic stripe and QR wallets on one device, so cards, Alipay+, WeChat Pay and Dynamic PayNow all run through the same unit on the same merchant account.

**What is the difference between Alipay and Alipay+?**

Alipay+ is Alipay’s cross-border gateway. Enabling it reaches mainland Alipay users and a set of partner wallets from other Asian markets, so one enablement covers more shoppers than mainland Alipay alone.

**If a tourist pays in their own currency, what do I receive?**

Singapore dollars. With Uniweb Pay the sale settles in the same T+1 batch as your card takings, into the same account, and appears on the same daily statement.

**How do I refund a WeChat Pay or Alipay sale?**

On the terminal. Search the transaction on the Sunmi P3 and void or refund it there, the same way you would a card sale — you do not raise a request and wait for someone else to process it.

**How long does it take to get set up?**

Days rather than weeks once your documents are in and approved. It is a document upload and review rather than an instant signup, because that is what a licensed institution has to do. We do not publish a guaranteed figure.

## Related guides

- [Which payment methods should a Singapore merchant accept?](https://www.uniwebpay.com/guides/payment-methods-singapore-merchants/)
- [How to choose a payment acquirer in Singapore](https://www.uniwebpay.com/guides/choosing-a-payment-acquirer-singapore/)
- [Getting a merchant account in Singapore: documents, timeline and what gets checked](https://www.uniwebpay.com/guides/merchant-account-singapore-application/)

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