Mastercard and ACI Worldwide are teaming up to “provide a wide range of real-time payment solutions globally.” This will address the opportunity created as the “account-to-account payments market continues to quickly expand,” a press release said on Tuesday (Sept. 29).
“With more countries and regions embarking on the modernization of their payments systems to capitalize on real-time technologies and customer demand, the market opportunity is significant,” said Paul Stoddart, Mastercard president of new payment platforms. “Working together with ACI, we will explore a wide range of opportunities to accelerate the development and usage of real-time and multi-channel payment platforms,” he added in the release.
“Mastercard and ACI share an extensive and complementary track record of real-time payments success,” said Craig Saks, ACI’s chief strategy and transformation officer. He added that the new partnership “will provide great benefit not only to banks and central infrastructures” but to merchants, their customers and financial technology companies (FinTechs).
The companies added that, “with a complementary real-time payments vision, the combination of Mastercard’s central infrastructure and ACI’s payments access and real-time message-transformation technology delivers an unmatched end-to-end offering.
According to the release, the new joint solution delivers key benefits including flexible options encompassing cloud-based services or “on-premise software for government, central bank and system operator-owned platforms,” along with the ability to “support organizations today and tomorrow, and provide translation to and from existing standards.”
Other benefits include the expertise “to support new digital services such as request to pay, proxy services and biller services” and the capability to deliver “global reach, international experience and the local market knowledge.”
ACI is a payment-systems company headquartered in Naples, Fla. In July, ACI added new services that will help to speed up real-time payments, a press release said.
Payments giant Mastercard, based in Purchase, N.Y., has shown a keen interest in real-time options and is also embracing cryptocurrency with the recently-announced expansion of its Accelerate program.
A new report put together by ACI and Global Data concluded that “across the world, real-time or ‘immediate payments’ (are) set to accelerate rapidly.” The report looks at real-time, account-to-account payment volumes in 30 global markets.
We’re always on the lookout for opportunities to partner with innovators and disruptors.
Learn More