Do You Need a Payment Gateway for PayNow?

Do you need a payment gateway for PayNow?

No. You don't need a payment gateway to accept PayNow. PayNow is a bank-to-bank transfer system built into every major Singapore bank. Your customers pay you directly from their banking app, and the money lands in your account. A gateway adds a processing layer, a settlement cycle, and a percentage fee. If PayNow is your main collection method, you can skip the gateway entirely and use software to generate and send QR codes instead.

What a payment gateway does

A payment gateway sits between your customer and your bank. When someone pays through a gateway like Stripe, HitPay, or any similar service, the money doesn't go to you directly. It goes to the gateway's settlement account first. The gateway processes it, deducts its fee (a percentage of the transaction), and then pays you out on its schedule.

Gateways exist because card payments are complicated. A Visa transaction involves the card network, the issuing bank, the acquiring bank, fraud checks, and chargebacks. That infrastructure costs money to run, and the gateway's percentage covers it.

PayNow is different. There's no card network, no acquiring bank, no chargeback process. The payer opens their banking app, scans a QR code or enters your details, and the money moves from their account to yours. It's direct. There's nothing in the middle that needs processing.

Why businesses end up with a gateway anyway

The usual path goes like this. A business owner wants to collect PayNow from customers. They search for "accept PayNow for business" or "PayNow for my shop." The results are dominated by payment gateways: Stripe, HitPay, Qashier, EPOS. These companies offer PayNow as one of many payment methods.

The business signs up, starts accepting PayNow through the gateway, and now they're paying a percentage on every PayNow transfer. Stripe charges 1.3% per PayNow payment. HitPay charges from 0.4% in-person and 0.65% plus S$0.30 online. Qashier charges 0.8% plus GST. EPOS charges 0.20% from 1 July 2026 (and its 0% rate only applies with an ANEXT account).

None of that percentage goes toward making PayNow work. PayNow already works, through the banking system, for free at the transfer level. The percentage pays for the gateway's infrastructure: the card processing, the wallets, the settlement system, the merchant account.

If you're not using any of that, the percentage is paying for services you don't need.

When you do need a gateway

A gateway earns its fee when you need to accept credit cards (Visa, Mastercard, Amex) from local or international customers, support multiple wallets (GrabPay, Apple Pay, Google Pay) alongside PayNow, run subscription or recurring billing, process payments across several countries with different methods, or embed a checkout page in your e-commerce platform.

These are real requirements, and a processor like Stripe is built for them. The percentage makes sense when you're using the full platform.

When you don't

You probably don't need a gateway if PayNow is your primary or only collection method, your customers are in Singapore, you don't accept cards (or accept them through a separate terminal you already have), your collection process is "send a QR, get paid," and you need to track who paid, not run multi-method checkout.

For these businesses, a gateway is overhead. You're managing a merchant account, waiting for settlement, and paying a percentage, all for a transfer that would otherwise cost you nothing.

The alternative: software instead of a processor

Instead of routing PayNow through a gateway, you can use software that generates PayNow QR codes with the amount and your reference already built in. The customer scans and pays. The money goes straight to your own bank. No settlement, no merchant account, no percentage.

DoubleAM PayNow works this way. It's software, not a processor. It never holds, moves, or takes a cut of your money. You create a payment request, send it on WhatsApp or wherever you communicate, and the customer pays into your bank directly. Every payment carries your reference, so matching it to the right invoice is straightforward.

The fee is flat. It doesn't change with the size of the payment. Whether you collect S$50 or S$5,000, the cost is the same.

If you want payments tracked automatically in the systems you already use, that's available as part of an integration setup.

The decision in plain terms

Ask yourself two questions. First: do I accept cards or wallets alongside PayNow? If yes, a gateway makes sense because it unifies everything. Second: is PayNow the main way my customers pay me? If yes, and you don't need cards or wallets, a gateway is more than the job needs.

You can try the free PayNow QR generator right now, with no signup, and see if it covers your actual workflow before deciding. For the full breakdown of what each gateway charges for PayNow, see our guide to accepting PayNow without transaction fees. And if you want PayNow built into your own app or back-office, see our integration options.

Last updated: June 2026. Gateway fees cited (Stripe 1.3%, HitPay from 0.4%/0.65%+S$0.30, Qashier 0.8%+GST, EPOS 0.20% from 1 Jul 2026) are based on published pricing as of this date.