Payment method · Singapore
Dynamic PayNow
Dynamic PayNow is a PayNow QR generated for each sale, carrying the exact amount, with a payment-success notification back to the merchant. That is the whole difference from the printed sticker — and it is the difference between a payment your till confirms and a payment a staff member confirms by squinting at a customer’s screenshot.
In short
- Per sale, with the amount in it. The customer does not key anything.
- The merchant is notified when it succeeds. No screenshot-checking.
- Not the same as SGQR, which is a shared national QR label, not a payment method.
- Runs on the same terminal and account as cards and wallets.
- Uniweb Pay offers Dynamic PayNow. It does not offer SGQR.
What it is
PayNow is Singapore’s real-time transfer service, run between the participating banks. Dynamic PayNow is merchant acceptance built on that rail: for each sale the terminal or checkout page generates a QR that already contains the amount, and when the customer pays, the merchant gets a confirmation.
Two properties follow, and they are the only two that matter. The customer cannot key the wrong amount, because they are not keying an amount. And the merchant does not have to trust a screen being held up at them, because the confirmation comes from the payment, not from the customer.
It is a local rail with a local customer base — this is how Singapore residents pay each other, and increasingly how they expect to pay a shop. It sits alongside the cards and the Chinese wallets rather than replacing either.
Against a static PayNow sticker
A static sticker is a printed QR with no amount in it. The customer scans it, types the amount themselves, pays, and then shows the merchant a success screen. Every one of those steps is a place for something to go wrong, and two of them go wrong regularly.
| Static sticker | Dynamic PayNow | |
|---|---|---|
| Amount | The customer types it | Generated with the sale |
| Wrong amount | Happens, and is found later | Cannot happen |
| Confirmation | A screenshot held up at staff | A notification to the merchant |
| Fake screenshots | A real and well-known problem | Not possible |
| Reconciliation | Manual, against a bank feed | On the same statement as the rest |
The honest summary: a sticker is fine for a stall where the owner is the person taking the money, and it stops being fine the moment there is a queue or a staff member who is not the owner. That is not a criticism of stickers, it is a description of where the ceiling is.
It is not SGQR, and the confusion is common
SGQR is Singapore’s shared national QR label — a standard for combining multiple payment schemes into one printed code. It is a labelling standard, not a payment method, and it is a different thing from Dynamic PayNow in a way that survives no amount of marketing that treats them as synonyms.
Uniweb Pay offers Dynamic PayNow. It does not offer SGQR. That is stated plainly here rather than worked around, because a merchant who needs SGQR specifically should know that before they get to a contract, and because a page that blurs the two is not one anybody should quote.
Dynamic PayNow, static PayNow and SGQR takes the three apart properly if you need the longer version.
Where it fits beside the other methods
Dynamic PayNow is the local rail; the cards are the universal one; Alipay+, WeChat Pay and UnionPay QR are the visitor rails. A Singapore counter that is missing one of the three is missing a group of customers rather than a feature.
With Uniweb Pay all three run on one merchant account and one Sunmi P3, and settle into one SGD payment in the same T+1 batch. That is the argument for having them together rather than assembling them from different suppliers: not the rate, the single reconciliation.
It works online too. The same rail is available on a hosted checkout page, so a business selling both across a counter and through a website is not running two arrangements.
How to get it
As a line on a merchant account with a licensed acquirer, alongside the cards and the wallets — not as a separate product from a separate supplier. Uniweb Pte Ltd is a Major Payment Institution, MAS Licence No. PS20200612.
You will need a Singapore business entity and a Singapore bank account in the registered name of that entity, plus the ordinary KYC and KYB documents. The merchant account guide has the full list.
If you currently run a static sticker and are deciding whether to move, the question that settles it is not price. It is whether the person taking payment is the person who cares whether it arrived.
Questions merchants ask
What is the difference between PayNow and Dynamic PayNow?
PayNow is the underlying transfer rail. Dynamic PayNow is merchant acceptance on it: a QR generated per sale carrying the exact amount, with a success notification back to the merchant.
Is Dynamic PayNow the same as SGQR?
No. SGQR is Singapore’s shared national QR label — a labelling standard that combines multiple schemes into one printed code. Uniweb Pay offers Dynamic PayNow and does not offer SGQR.
Can the customer still enter the wrong amount?
No. The amount is generated with the sale and carried in the code, so there is nothing for the customer to type.
Do I need a separate device for it?
No. On a Sunmi P3 it runs on the same terminal and the same merchant account as cards and wallets, and settles into the same SGD batch.
Does it work for an online checkout as well as a counter?
Yes. The same rail is available on a hosted checkout page, so in-person and online sit on one merchant account.
Talk to us about your counter
Uniweb Pay is a Singapore merchant acquirer, licensed by MAS as a Major Payment Institution (No. PS20200612). Tell us what you sell and who pays you, and we will tell you whether we are the right fit — including when we are not.