ACI Worldwide Profile
ACI Worldwide, Inc. (ACI) develops, markets, installs, and supports a broad line of software products and solutions primarily focused on facilitating real-time digital payments. ACI's enterprise payments capabilities target any channel, any network, and any payment type and the company's solutions empower customers to regain control, choice, and flexibility in complex payments environment, get to market more quickly, and reduce operational costs.
ACI's solutions and services are used globally by banks, intermediaries, merchants, and billers, such as third-party digital payment processors, payment associations, switch interchanges, and a wide range of transaction-generating endpoints, including automated teller machines (ATM), merchant point-of-sale (POS) terminals, bank branches, mobile phones, tablets, corporations, and internet commerce sites.
ACI combines a global perspective with local presence to tailor digital payment solutions for the company's customers. The company has one of the most diverse and robust digital payment solution portfolios in the industry with application software spanning the entire payments value chain.
Target Markets
ACI's comprehensive digital payment solutions serve three key markets:
Banks
ACI provides payment solutions to large and mid-size banks globally for both retail banking, digital, and other payment services. The company's solutions transform banks' complex payment environments to speed time to market, reduce costs, and deliver a consistent experience to customers across channels while enabling them to prevent and rapidly react to fraudulent activity. In addition, the company enables banks to meet the requirements of different real-time payment schemes and to quickly create differentiated products to meet consumer, business, and merchant demands.
ACI's payment solutions support intermediaries, such as processors, networks, payment service providers (PSPs), and new financial technology (fintech) entrants. The company offers these customers scalable solutions that strategically position them to innovate and achieve growth and cost efficiency, while protecting them against fraud. The company's solutions also allow new entrants in the digital marketplace to access innovative payment schemes, such as the U.S. FedNow and RTP from The Clearing House, the U.K. Faster Payments New Access Model, Singapore FAST, India Unified Payments Interface (UPI), the Payments Network Malaysia (PayNet), Real-time Retail Payments Platform (RPP), and others.
Merchants
ACI's support of merchants globally includes Tier 1 and Tier 2 merchants, online-only merchants and the PSPs, independent selling organizations (ISOs), value-added resellers (VARs), and acquirers who service them. These customers operate in a variety of verticals, including general merchandise, grocery, hospitality, dining, transportation, and others. The company's solutions provide merchants with a secure, omni-channel payments platform that gives them independence from third-party payment providers. The company also offers secure solutions to online-only merchants that provide consumers with a convenient and seamless way to shop.
Billers
Within the biller segment, ACI provides electronic bill presentment and payment (EBPP) services to companies operating in the consumer finance, insurance, healthcare, higher education, utility, government, mortgage, subscription providers, and telecommunications categories. The company's solutions enable these customers to support a wide range of payment options and provide a convenient consumer payments experience that drives consumer loyalty and increases revenue.
Solutions
ACI is a global software company that provides mission-critical, real-time payment solutions to corporations. Customers use the company's proven, scalable, and secure solutions to process and manage digital payments, enable omni-commerce payments, present and process bill payments, and manage fraud and risk. The company combines its global footprint with local presence to drive the real-time digital transformation of payments and commerce. The company's strategic solution areas include the following:
Issuing and Acquiring
ACI offers comprehensive consumer payment solutions ranging from core payment engines to back-office support that enable banks and intermediaries to compete effectively in today's real-time, open payments ecosystem.
ACI Acquiring is a solution that helps merchant acquirers and ATM acquirers process credit, debit, and prepaid card transactions, deliver digital innovation, improve fraud prevention, and reduce interchange fees.
ACI Issuing is a digital payments issuing solution that helps issuers process card transactions, accelerate innovation, give customers new payment offerings, and deliver innovative security, with flexible cloud-based or on-premises deployment.
ACI Enterprise Payments Platform is a market-leading technology that provides payment players global payment processing and orchestration capabilities for all digital payments, including high- and low-value payments, real-time and alternative payments, and cards.
Real-Time Payments
ACI supports both low- and high-value real-time payment processing for banks and intermediaries globally, ensuring multi-bank, multi-currency, and 24x7 payment processing capabilities, as well as complete and ongoing regulatory compliance.
ACI Low Value Real-Time Payments is a platform with a complete range of capabilities for processing real-time payments, including origination, processing, orchestration, clearing and settlement, fraud detection, and connectivity.
ACI High Value Real-Time Payments is a global payments engine that offers multi-bank, multi-currency, and 24x7 payment processing capabilities, as well as SWIFT messaging with seamless integrations to multiple clearing and settlement mechanisms.
Merchant Payments (ACI Payments Orchestration Platform)
ACI offers merchants a secure and scalable payments platform with the flexibility to support in-store, online, and mobile payments.
ACI Payments Orchestration Platform is a holistic, intelligent payments platform that orchestrates and optimizes payments by combining a powerful payments gateway with multilayered fraud management, advanced business intelligence tools, and access to an extensive global network of acquirers, third-party providers, and alternative payment methods.
ACI Fraud Management for Merchants, ACI's multi-layered fraud management solution, supports merchants with a comprehensive, real-time approach to fraud management that uses a combination of patented incremental machine learning, fraud and payments data, predictive and behavioral analytics, positive profiling, customized fraud strategies, expert support, and consortium data to help prevent fraud and reduce the burden of compliance, delivered as a multi-tenant platform, as a service, or deployed in the public cloud or on premises. It enables customers to protect their payments end to end from the customer check-in to payment and post authorization, enhancing the customer experience.
Payments Intelligence and Risk Management
ACI's data engine uses powerful analytics to deliver robust and precise real-time decisioning, prevention, and detection capabilities to banks and intermediary customers.
ACI Fraud Management for financial institutions offers banks and intermediaries a comprehensive, real-time approach to fraud management that uses a combination of machine learning, fraud and payments data, and advanced analytics to help prevent fraud and reduce the burden of compliance, delivered as a service, or deployed in the public cloud or on premises.
Bill Payment
ACI meets the bill payment needs of corporate customers across myriad industries through a range of electronic bill payment offerings that help companies raise consumer satisfaction while reducing costs.
ACI Speedpay is an integrated suite of digital billing, payment, disbursement, and communication services that lowers the cost of presenting and accepting bill payments while delivering industry-leading security.
On Premises, On Demand, or Hybrid Software Delivery Options
The company's software solutions are offered to its customers through either a traditional term software license arrangement where the software is installed and operated on the customer premises or in a cloud environment, through an on-demand arrangement where the solution is maintained and delivered through the public cloud or ACI's private cloud via its global data centers, or a combination of the two based upon their unique needs. Solutions delivered through ACI's on-demand cloud are available in either a single-tenant environment, known as a Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) offering, or in a multi-tenant environment, known as a Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) offering.
Partnerships and Industry Participation
The company has two major types of third-party product partners: technology partners, or industry leaders with whom it works closely that drive key industry trends and mandates, and business partners, where it either embeds the partners' technology in ACI products, host the partners' software in ACI's cloud as a part of its cloud offerings, or jointly market solutions that include the products of the other company.
Technology partners help the company add value to its solutions and stay abreast of current market conditions and industry developments such as standards. In addition, ACI has membership in or participates in the relevant committees of several industry associations, such as the International Organization for Standardization (ISO), Accredited Standards Committee (ASC) X9, ATM Industry Association (ATMIA), Financial Services, Nexo Standards, U.K. Cards Association, U.S. Payments Forum, and the PCI Security Standards Council. These partnerships provide direction as it relates to the specifications that are used by the card schemes, real-time payment standards, and, in some cases, hardware vendors. These organizations typically look to ACI as a source of knowledge and experience to be shared in conjunction with creating and enhancing their standards. The benefit to ACI is having the opportunity to influence these standards with concepts and ideas that will benefit the market, the company's customers, and ACI.
ACI also holds important positions at different payment advisory leader groups worldwide, including advisory board membership with the Faster Payments Council in the U.S., global advisory board membership with the Merchant Risk Council (MRC), and a key stakeholder membership with the European Payments Council (EPC).
Business partner relationships extend the company's product portfolio, improve its ability to get its solutions to market, and enhance its ability to deliver market-leading solutions. The company shares revenues with these business partners based on several factors related to overall value contribution in the delivery of the joint solution or payment type.
The company has alliances with its technology partners Microsoft Corporation, Amazon, Google, HPE, IBM, and Oracle USA, Inc. (Oracle), whose industry-leading hardware, software, and cloud-based infrastructure services are utilized by and in delivery of ACI's products. These partnerships allow the company to understand developments in the partners' technology and to utilize their expertise in topics like sizing, scalability, and performance testing.
Services
The company offers its customers a wide range of professional services, including consultation, analysis, design, development, implementation, integration, testing, and project management. The company's service professionals generally perform the majority of the work associated with implementing and integrating its software solutions. In addition, the company works with a limited number of systems integration and services partners, such as Accenture, LLC, Cognizant Technology Solutions Corporation, and Stanchion Payments Solution for staff augmentation and coordinated co-prime delivery where appropriate.
Product support services are available to customers after a solution has been installed and are based on the relevant product support category. An extensive team of support analysts are available to assist customers.
In addition, ACI education services with instructor-led courses include both theory and practical sessions to allow students to work though real business scenarios and put their newly learned skills to use. This hands-on approach ensures that the knowledge is retained, and the student is more productive upon their return to the workplace. Some training topics are further supplemented by self-paced eLearning, available to students on demand to support their skills journey. ACI's education courses provide students with knowledge at all levels to enhance and improve their understanding of ACI products. ACI also provides further, more in-depth technical courses that allow students to use practical labs to enhance what they have learned in the classroom. The ACI trainers' ability to understand customers' systems means ACI may also provide tailored course materials for individual customers. Depending on the products purchased, training may be conducted at a dedicated education facility at one of ACI's offices, online, on demand, or at the customer site.
Customer Support
ACI provides the company's customers with product support that is available 24 hours a day, seven days a week. The company offers its customers two support options:
Standard Customer Support: After implementation completion, the company provides maintenance services to customers for a monthly product support fee. Maintenance services include: new product releases (major, minor and patches) for active products; 24-hour hotline for priority one (P1) problem resolutions; access to its online support portal (eSupport); vendor-required mandates and updates; product documentation; hardware operating system compatibility; and user group membership
Premium Customer Support: Under the premium customer support option, referred to as the Premium Customer Support Program and available at additional cost, customers are provided support beyond the standard offering. The services available may differ by product and are defined in the customer contract.
The company periodically provides new product releases, which often contain minor product enhancements, that are typically provided at no additional fee for customers under standard customer support agreements. Agreements with the company's customers permit it to charge for substantial product enhancements that are not provided as part of the standard or premium customer support agreement.
Trademarks and Service Marks
ACI, ACI Worldwide, ACI Payments, Inc., ACI Pay, Speedpay, and all ACI product/solution names are trademarks or registered trademarks of the company, or one of its subsidiaries, in the United States, other countries or both.
Competition
Issuing, Acquiring, and Real-Time Payments: The third-party software competitors for ACI's Issuing, Acquiring, and Real-Time Payments solutions include Fidelity National Information Service, Inc. (FIS), Finastra, Fiserv, Inc. (Fiserv), NCR, OpenWay Group, Total System Services, Inc. (Global Payments), and Volante, as well as small, regionally-focused companies such as BPC Banking Technologies, CR2, Financial Software and Systems, Form3, HPS, Icon Solution, Lusis Payments Ltd., Opus Software Solutions Private Limited, PayEx Solutions AS, Renovite, and RS2. Primary digital payment processing competitors in this area include global entities, such as Atos Origin S.A., Fiserv, Mastercard, SiNSYS, and VISA, as well as regional or country-specific processors.
Payments Orchestration: Competitors for merchant payments (ACI Payments Orchestration Platform) come from both third-party software and service providers, as well as service organizations run by major banks. Third-party software and service competitors include Adyen, Cybersource (VISA Acceptance Solutions), Fiserv, Ingenico Group, NCR, Square, Inc., Tender Retail Inc., VeriFone Systems, Inc., Worldpay Inc. (FIS), and Worldline.
The company is also competing in some areas with the traditional orchestration layer providers such as IXOpay, Payoneer, Nuvei, and Spreedly.
Fraud Management: Principal competitors for the company's ACI Fraud Management solution are Accertify (American Express), BAE Systems, Cybersource (VISA), Fair Isaac Corporation, Featurespace, Feedzai, FIS, Fiserv, Forter, Kount, NCR, NICE LTD, and SAS Institute, Inc., as well as dozens of smaller companies focused on niches of this segment such as device identification and anti-money laundering.
Bill Payments: The principal competitors for the company's ACI Speedpay bill payment solution are Aliaswire Inc., CSG Systems International, Inc., FIS, Fiserv, Invoice Cloud, Inc., Jack Henry & Associates, Inc., Kubra Customer Interaction Management, Nelnet, Inc. and Affiliates, NIC, Paymentus Corp., PayNearMe, Repay, TouchNet Information Systems, Inc., Transact, and Worldpay Inc. (FIS), as well as smaller vertical-specific providers.
Customers
The company provides software products and solutions to its banks, intermediary, and merchants customers worldwide. The company's biller products and solutions are sold in the United States. As of December 31, 2023, the company served more than 6,000 organizations, including all 10 of the top 10 banks worldwide, as measured by asset size, and 80,000+ merchants directly and through payment service providers, and it has customers in 95+ countries on six continents.
Selling and Implementation
The company's products are sold and supported directly and through distribution networks covering three geographic regions - the Americas, Europe/Middle East/Africa (EMEA) and the Asia Pacific. The company's primary method of distribution is direct sales by employees assigned to specific target customer segments. The company has sales and services personnel in offices throughout the United States. Outside of the United States, the company's international subsidiaries sell, support, and service its products and solutions in their local countries. The company's broad geographic footprint allows it to leverage the business and technical expertise of a global workforce.
The company generates a majority of its sales leads through existing relationships with vendors, direct marketing programs, customers and prospects, or through referrals.
The company uses distributors and referral partners to supplement its direct sales force in countries where it is more efficient and economical to do so. ACI's distributors, resellers, and system integration partners are enabled to provide supplemental or complete product implementation and customization services directly to its customers or in a joint delivery model.
The company distributes the products of other vendors where they complement its existing product lines. The company is typically responsible for the sales and marketing of the vendors' products, and agreements with these vendors generally provide for revenue sharing based on relative responsibilities.
Proprietary Rights and Licenses
The company distributes its software products under software license agreements that typically grant customers nonexclusive licenses to use its products. Use of the company's software products is usually restricted to designated computers, specified locations and/or specified capacity, and is subject to terms and conditions prohibiting unauthorized reproduction or transfer of its software products. The company also seeks to protect the source code of its software as a trade secret and as a copyrighted work.
In addition to its own products, the company distributes, or acts as a sales agent for, software developed by third parties. The company's rights to those third-party products and the associated intellectual property rights are limited by the terms of the contractual agreement between it and the respective third party.
Government Regulation
As a provider of payment services to banks and intermediaries, the company is subject to regulatory oversight and examination by the Federal Financial Institutions Examination Council (FFIEC), an interagency body of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, the National Credit Union Administration and various state regulatory authorities as part of the Multi-Region Data Processing Servicer Program (MDPS).
ACI Payments, Inc., the company's EBPP affiliate, is registered as a Money Services Business. Accordingly, the company is subject to the USA Patriot Act and reporting requirements of the Bank Secrecy Act and United States (U.S.). Treasury Regulations. The company has implemented policies, procedures, and internal controls that are designed to comply with all applicable anti-money laundering laws and regulations. ACI has also implemented policies, procedures, and internal controls that are designed to comply with the regulations and economic sanctions programs administered by the U.S. Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), which enforces economic and trade sanctions against targeted foreign countries, entities and individuals based on external threats to the U.S. foreign policy, national security, or economy; by other governments; or by global or regional multilateral organizations, such as the United Nations Security Council and the European Union as applicable.
History
The company, a Delaware corporation, was founded in 1975. The company was formerly known as Transaction Systems Architects, Inc. and changed its name to ACI Worldwide, Inc. in 2007.
