Global Technology Partner: ACI Worldwide

ACI powers 26 domestic and pan-regional real-time payments schemes across six continents, including 10 central infrastructures, providing solutions to central banks, participant banks, fintechs and other payment service providers

In the Middle East, two central infrastructures went live this year, advancing the region’s transformation of the payments ecosystem.

In Asia, ACI provides the central infrastructure for its real-time payments system in Indonesia, incorporating 135 banks, multi-tenant aggregators and non-bank participants.

“I really wouldn’t classify Asia as an emerging market when it comes to real-time payments. They are the leaders,” Craig Ramsey, global head of real-time payments at ACI Worldwide, tells Central Banking. “These are the innovators that have grasped real time and really delivered it to their population, businesses and the government.”

The project is close to full ubiquity in Indonesia. “It’s just critical to see the transaction growth,” says Ramsey. ACI Worldwide “is working with central banks to drive that ubiquity”.  

Malaysia’s Real-time Retail Payments Platform was introduced by the national payments network and central infrastructure provider, in collaboration with ACI, to establish ISO 20022 real-time payments across financial institutions and communities. In India, ACI Worldwide is partnered with Mindgate Solutions to deliver 6 billion Unified Payments Interface transactions every month.

In Colombia, ACI Worldwide has partnered with Banco de la República, the central bank of Colombia, to build a new domestic real-time payments ecosystem as part of a nationwide banking transformation project. The central bank will utilise ACI’s software solutions to build the central infrastructure of an interoperable countrywide scheme that includes centralised settlement, and develop services for the existing real-time payments schemes. The project is set to go live in 2025.

After PIX in Brazil, it will be the second scheme in Latin America to be built through collaborative consensus by all stakeholders in the payments ecosystem. The government, regulators, private banks and the central bank have been working together to bring real-time payments modernisation to Colombian consumers and businesses.

Ramsey emphasises the importance of fast roll-outs, which ACI Worldwide says it often achieves within a year. Otherwise, longer projects can become stale for the very officials or politicians who initiated the project. Having solutions that are flexible to a country’s needs is key to that rapid deployment, says Ramsey.

A magnitude of factors go into successfully building a fast payments ecosystem. Aside from software, roll-out requires data centres, servers and operations managers. Many central bank payment systems have never run 24/7 real-time instant payment services. They need governance and strong rule setting. “You need to know how to connect with the participants and how to set the standards for ISO 20022,” says Ramsey.

ACI Worldwide also provides digital overlay services that enable the banking and fintech community to add value to central banks’ infrastructure and drive innovation in the market. Last but not least, the central bank needs to brand all of these different components to bring it together and ensure uptake.

ACI Worldwide has enabled interconnectivity between Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia, and has partnerships with Swift, among other payment networks. Once countries have “their domestic layers, then they need to go after their trading corridors to further drive payments improvements”, says Ramsey.

On the future of payments, Ramsey says: “Cross-border instant payments are the next frontier for payments innovation in real time.” 
 

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