Stripe built something remarkable: a payment processor a developer could integrate in an afternoon. For a decade, that was the right product for the right moment, but Singapore and other SEA countries in 2026 are a different problem.

The market doesn't run only on cards like Stripe expects in the USA. In Singapore, it runs on PayNow, GrabPay, Atome, and WeChat Pay. It serves Chinese tourists dropping S$2,000 on electronics who want to pay with UnionPay. It serves Malaysian customers who split purchases through Atome's BNPL. It serves Korean shoppers in transit who open KakaoPay.

Stripe handles none of that well. Adyen handles all of it - and so does Solvimon.

The local payment stack Stripe doesn't cover

54% of Stripe's Singapore users sold internationally between July 2024 and June 2025. Cross-border payments on Stripe grew 30%+ in the market over the same period.

That's not evidence of Stripe dominating APAC. It's evidence that Stripe customers are selling out of Singapore often because the local payment stack for selling into Singapore isn't available to them.

PayNow is Singapore's national real-time payment rail, regulated by MAS, backed by 15 banks and 4 e-wallets. It settles in 1 day at 1.30% but Stripe doesn't support it.

GrabPay has 100 million users across Singapore, Malaysia, and the Philippines. One Adyen integration unlocks all three markets. Stripe doesn't support it.

Atome lets shoppers split into three interest-free instalments. Merchants get paid in full upfront. The evidence on BNPL adoption in SEA is consistent: it increases basket size, reduces abandonment, and reaches customers who won't (or can't) put the purchase on a card. Stripe doesn't support it.

The pricing for Singapore paymnets

Stripe charges S$0.50 + 3.4% on domestic card transactions in Singapore. That's the whole menu.

Adyen runs interchange++. The effective rate depends on card type and volume, but at meaningful scale it's materially cheaper. More importantly, PayNow at 1.30% changes the blended rate entirely for Singapore-first businesses. Every PayNow transaction you can't accept on Stripe is a transaction you're paying card rates on, or losing.

Airwallex, for context, charges 1% for PayNow and is growing at 107% year-over-year in Singapore. The market is moving toward local method pricing. Flat-rate card processors are getting left behind.

Adyen interchange++ pricing is volume-dependent. At high volumes, effective card rates are typically lower than Stripe's flat rate.

What Adyen covers well in APAC

A single Adyen integration handles:

• Singapore: PayNow, GrabPay, Atome, cards, in-person

• Malaysia: GrabPay, Atome, cards

• Philippines: GrabPay, cards

• South Korea: KakaoPay, cards

• Greater China / Chinese consumers globally: WeChat Pay, UnionPay, Alipay

• Japan: JCB, cards

• Australia, HK, NZ: cards, local methods

That's decent market access.

The onboarding gap, closed

If you read some blogs, Adyen's weakness in SEA is onboarding speed. It's built for enterprises, and the sales cycle reflects that. Stripe wins on self-serve for exactly this reason.

However, in 2026 Solvimon solves this. As a certified Adyen partner, we fast-track onboarding for online businesses so you get the full Adyen infrastructure, local payment stack, and interchange-plus pricing without the enterprise timeline in a PLG motion.

Choose a brand with local presence

Stripe is still a good choice if you're early, card-only, and primarily selling to international customers from Singapore. The developer experience is great, onboarding is same-day, and the flat-rate pricing is easy to model. The businesses moving off Stripe in Singapore are doing it because their market got more specific while Stripe stayed general.

Adyen with Solvimon is the better, upgrade choice if your customers are also in Singapore and Southeast Asia, your volume justifies interchange-plus pricing, and you need local payment methods that actually reflect how the market pays.

Reach out to learn more about our monetization solutions for Southeast Asia