Payment method · Singapore
UnionPay in Singapore
UnionPay is the scheme Singapore merchants most often forget. It is both a card scheme and a QR rail — Chinese customers use it both ways — and a shop that has enabled the card and not the QR has done half the job without knowing it. Both sit on one merchant account, and on one device.
In short
- Two rails, one name. A UnionPay card at the terminal, and a UnionPay QR in a wallet app.
- It is the scheme most often left off a Singapore merchant account.
- The card side behaves like any other card: contactless, chip, or magnetic stripe.
- The QR side behaves like any other wallet: both scan directions.
- Uniweb Pay enables both, on one account, settled in SGD.
Why UnionPay is two things
UnionPay began as China’s card scheme and it is still that: a UnionPay card is a physical card that goes into or taps a terminal, exactly like Visa or Mastercard, and it is accepted or declined by the same mechanism.
It is also a QR rail. A customer can pay from a UnionPay QR inside a wallet app without a physical card being present at all, and that is an increasingly common way for the same person to pay. The two are the same brand and, from the merchant’s side, two separate enablements.
This is the source of the most common gap on a Singapore merchant account. A merchant asks for "cards", gets the six schemes including UnionPay, and reasonably assumes UnionPay is covered — while the QR half, which some of their customers will reach for first, is not switched on.
Who pays with it
Chinese visitors and residents, and more of them than a merchant who thinks in terms of Alipay and WeChat expects. UnionPay is the card in the wallet rather than the app on the phone, and it is used by people who do not habitually pay by QR at all — an older visitor, a business traveller on a corporate card, anyone who has always paid by card and sees no reason to change abroad.
It also reaches beyond mainland China. UnionPay cards are issued in a number of markets, so a merchant enabling it is not exclusively serving one visitor group.
What this adds up to is that UnionPay does not overlap as neatly with the wallets as it looks. The customer who pays by UnionPay card is often not the customer who would have paid by Alipay, which is why enabling all three is a coverage decision rather than a redundancy.
At the counter
The card side is a card. On a Sunmi P3 that is contactless, chip and insert, or magnetic stripe on the same unit — and the magnetic stripe is worth having rather than dismissing, because some cards a visitor is carrying still need it.
The QR side is a wallet. Both directions again: the terminal shows a code carrying the amount, or the terminal scans the code on the customer’s phone. The same device does both, so there is no second box and no second queue.
The receipt names the method, and refunds and voids are done on the device by searching for the transaction. That is the same for the card and the QR, which is the point of having them on one account.
How to check whether you actually have both
Ask your current provider a direct question rather than reading the contract: "is UnionPay QR enabled on my account, as well as UnionPay card?" The answer is often no, and the reason is usually that nobody asked.
Four questions for your existing provider
- Is UnionPay card enabled — contactless, chip and magnetic stripe?
- Is UnionPay QR enabled as a separate rail?
- Do both settle into the same batch as the rest of my takings?
- Does the receipt distinguish them, so the end-of-day count reconciles?
If the answer to the second one is no and your customers include Chinese visitors, that is a gap worth closing before renegotiating anything about price.
Enabling it, and what it settles as
Both rails are lines on a merchant account with a licensed acquirer. Uniweb Pay enables the six card schemes — Visa, Mastercard, American Express, UnionPay, Diners Club and Discover — and UnionPay QR alongside Alipay+, WeChat Pay and Dynamic PayNow, on one account and one device.
Settlement is Singapore dollars, T+1, in the same batch as everything else on the account. Uniweb Pay is among the largest acquirers of Alipay, WeChat Pay and UnionPay in Singapore, and was the first overseas acquirer for Alipay here.
Which payment methods should a Singapore merchant accept? puts UnionPay in context against the other ten, and the retail page covers the trade where the gap shows up most often.
Questions merchants ask
Is UnionPay a card or a QR code?
Both. It is a card scheme and a QR rail under one brand, and they are two separate enablements on a merchant account. Enabling only the card is the most common gap.
I already accept "all cards" — am I covered for UnionPay?
For the card side, probably. For the QR side, often not. Ask your provider explicitly whether UnionPay QR is enabled as a rail, because "all cards" does not include it.
Do I need UnionPay if I already take Alipay+ and WeChat Pay?
They do not overlap as much as they appear to. The customer paying by UnionPay card is frequently not the customer who would have opened a wallet app — an older visitor or a business traveller, for instance.
Is magnetic stripe still worth having?
Yes. Some cards a visitor is carrying still require it, and the Sunmi P3 supports it on the same unit as contactless and chip.
How does it settle?
Singapore dollars, T+1, in the same batch and on the same statement as the rest of the account. Both the card and the QR side.
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.