ACI Worldwide and Dock Bring ‘Acquiring-as-a-Service’ to Brazil

ACI Worldwide says it wants to bring “Acquiring-as-a-Service” to the Brazilian market.

To that end, the real-time payments software company has teamed with Dock, a Latin American FinTech, to debut this solution, the companies announced in a Wednesday (July 19) news release.

“Dock’s Acquiring as a Service solutions are bolstered by ACI Worldwide’s state-of-the-art technology, enabling seamless integration with other payment solutions,” the news release said. “Dock presents a robust, modular, and tailor-made solution that adapts to the specific needs of its clients.”

The solution lets non-financial institutions like retailers, restaurants and eCommerce businesses take on the role of acquirers via a subscription process, doing away with the need for accreditation from card networks and or Brazil’s central bank.

PYMNTS looked at the role acquiring can play in cash-reliant Latin American countries earlier this year in a conversation with Juan Jose Galnares, president of FinTech Clip.

He said his company offers a solution called “acquiring in a box” that lets small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) accept all payment methods in a mobile point-of-sale device, with an onboarding process of five minutes or less.

“We have taken that massive, lengthy, cumbersome process and transformed it into a quick, fast, simple onboarding of five minutes or less,” Galnares told PYMNTS’ Karen Webster.

While Clip assumes the risk of the transactions that merchants accept, it takes a data-driven approach when it comes to identifying which merchants should get access and which need to provide additional documentation.

Galnares added that his past experience with Amazon’s retail operations and in the private equity space have shown him the value of managing high-growth operations with data.

“We know the local rules,” he said. “We have certain risk parameters that allow us to navigate that successfully, and that’s part of what we have done” for the equivalent of tens of dollars out-of-pocket for merchants rather than the high upfront costs charged by acquirers.

The release of ACI’s acquiring solution follows last month’s launch of its instant payments solution for merchants in Europe and the U.K., letting them accept instant online, mobile and in-store payments by integrating with the company’s payment orchestration platform.

“Payments need to keep pace with an increasingly digital society. In Europe, 90% of people aged 16 to 74 now use the internet, and 74% buy or order goods online,” said Basant Singh, global head of ACI’s merchant business. “In our expanding ‘always on’ transactional world, giving and receiving money electronically should be as instantaneous as handing over cash.”