ACI Worldwide is a digital payments software company headquartered in Elkhorn, Nebraska, that processes billions of transactions daily equating to trillions of U.S. dollars for customers in 94 countries. Banks, financial institutions, merchants, billers, acquirers, issuers, and other third-party payment service providers use its intelligent solutions to deploy secure payment rails across all channels.

Partnerships

ACI Worldwide has partnered with organizations like AWS, Google, Red Hat, IBM, Mastercard, Visa, and other fintech innovators to enable banks, merchants, and billers to easily and securely accept, transform, and transmit any payment instantly on a platform.

History

ACI was founded in

Omaha, Nebraska Omaha ( ) is the List of cities in Nebraska, most populous city in the U.S. state of Nebraska. It is located in the Midwestern United States along the Missouri River, about north of the mouth of the Platte River. The nation's List of United S ...

as Applied Communications Inc, on September 1, 1975, to develop software for communications applications using the new NonStop computers from

Tandem Computers Tandem Computers, Inc. was the dominant manufacturer of fault-tolerant computer systems for Automated teller machine, ATM networks, banks, stock exchanges, telephone switching centers, 911 systems, and other similar commercial transaction proc ...

. The founders were James Cody, Dave Willadsen, and Dennis Gates. Chuck Hackett, Charly Foglesong, and Mike May began ACI's relationship with Tandem. Early projects involved building systems to handle

ATMs An automated teller machine (ATM) is an electronic telecommunications device that enables customers of financial institutions to perform financial transactions, such as cash withdrawals, deposits, funds transfers, balance inquiries or account ...

and front ends for core banking systems, which led to the launch of the first product, BASE24, in 1982. BASE24 was coined by a salesman to represent "Baseline Software for 24 hour-per-day system operations". BASE24 was expanded over time to service transactions from other channels, such as POS terminals and bank branch systems. The product portfolio grew to cover functions related to card transactions, such as clearing, settlement and

fraud detection In law, fraud is intent (law), intentional deception to deprive a victim of a legal right or to gain from a victim unlawfully or unfairly. Fraud can violate Civil law (common law), civil law (e.g., a fraud victim may sue the fraud perpetrato ...

. The hardware support for these products was extended to suppliers

IBM International Business Machines Corporation (using the trademark IBM), nicknamed Big Blue, is an American Multinational corporation, multinational technology company headquartered in Armonk, New York, and present in over 175 countries. It is ...

, HP,

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and

Sun Microsystems Sun Microsystems, Inc., often known as Sun for short, was an American technology company that existed from 1982 to 2010 which developed and sold computers, computer components, software, and information technology services. Sun contributed sig ...

. In the 1990s, ACI's product range was expanded to cover

wholesale banking Wholesale banking is the provision of services by banks to larger customers or organizations such as mortgage brokers, large corporate clients, mid-sized companies, real estate developers and investors, international trade finance businesses, ...

payments with software for ACH transactions and

wire transfer Wire transfer, bank transfer, or credit transfer, is a method of electronic funds transfer from one person or entity to another. A wire transfer can be made from one bank account to another bank account, or through a transfer of cash at a cash ...

s leading to the acquisition of IntraNet, Inc. in 1998, and adding the Money Transfer System product. Since 1995, ACI has been publicly traded on

NASDAQ The Nasdaq Stock Market (; National Association of Securities Dealers Automated Quotations) is an American stock exchange based in New York City. It is the most active stock trading venue in the U.S. by volume, and ranked second on the list ...

, initially under the name Transaction Systems Architects (TSA), and, since July 2007, under the name ACI Worldwide, Inc. (ACIW). Prior to that ACI had periods of ownership by

US West US West, Inc. was one of seven Regional Bell Operating Companies (RBOCs, also referred to as "Baby Bells"), created in 1983 under the Modification of Final Judgement (''United States v. Western Electric Co., Inc.'' 552 Fed. Supp. 131), a cas ...

and Tandem, and as a private company.

Acquisitions

*1998: IntraNet, Inc. was acquired by ACI Worldwide's predecessor Transaction Systems Architects, Inc. IntraNet, Inc. manufactured software systems to facilitate electronic payments. *2005: S2 Systems signed an agreement to sell substantially all its assets to Transaction Systems Architects, Inc. *2005: Restructuring of Transaction Systems Architects, Inc. into a highly focused organization, merging ACI, Insession, and IntraNet into one operating unit under the name ACI Worldwide. The name change became official in July 2007. *2006: P&H Solutions Inc., a provider of a Web-based corporate cash management product, was acquired by ACI Worldwide. *2006: Electronic Payment Systems AG (eps) was acquired. *2007: Stratasoft Sdn Bhd was acquired. *2007: Visual WEB Solutions Inc., a financial banking applications company, was acquired. *2009: Euronet Essentis was purchased by ACI to expand card issuing and merchant management capabilities *2011: The acquisition of ISD Corporation was announced to broaden the functionality of ACI's payments products for retailers. *2012:

S1 Corporation S1 Corporation was an American software development company based in Norcross, Georgia which specialized in payment processing and financial services software for automated teller machines and retail point of sale applications, primarily for ban ...

was acquired to broaden ACI's suite of payment offerings for financial organizations, processors and retailers. *2012: North Data Uruguay S.A. was acquired. *2012: Distra Pty Ltd was acquired. *2013: Online Resources Corporation was acquired. *2013: Official Payments Holdings, a provider of electronic bill payment technology, was acquired. The company processed approximately 20 million payments, totaling over $9 billion annually. *2013: Profesionales en Transacciones Electronicas S.A. (PTESA) was acquired. *2014: An agreement to acquire Retail Decisions (ReD) was announced and completed on August 12, 2014. *2015: PAY.ON, which provides white-label hosted payment gateway services, was acquired. *2019: ACI enters agreement to acquire Speedpay, Western Union's U.S. bill pay business, for $750 million *2019: Walletron was acquired.

Awards and Rankings

* U.S. News & World Repor
Best Companies to Work For 2024-2025
* Newsweek America’
Greatest Workplaces for Diversity
* Newsweek America’
Greatest Workplaces for Women
* Newsweek America’
Greatest Workplaces for Mental Wellbeing
* MEA Finance and Banking Technology Summit & Awards
Best Risk Management Solution Provider:
ACI Fraud Management * Datos Insights Matrix
Best in Class Payments Orchestration
* National Technology Award — Security Innovation of the Year — ACI * Fraud Management * National Technology Award — Retail Tech of the Year — ACI Payments Orchestration Platform™ * Payments Award — Beat Marketing Campaign of the Year * Pay 360 Awards — Best Lending Initiative — ACI Pay After™ * Juniper Research Future Digital Awards 2024 �
Merchant Fraud Prevention Platform Platinum Prize
— ACI Fraud Management for Merchants * Juniper Research Future Digital Awards 2024 �
AI in Fraud Prevention Innovation Gold Prize
— ACI Fraud Management for Merchants * CFO Tech Outlook — Top Financial Fraud Detection Solution — ACI Payments Orchestration Platform™ * Merchant Payments Ecosystem Awards 2023 — Best Payments Orchestration Platform — ACI Payments Orchestration Platform™ * Paytech Awards U.S. — Best Consumer Payments Solution — ACI Payments Orchestration Platform™ * Global Payments Innovation Awards 2023 — Highly Acclaimed: Best Payments-Led Financial Inclusion Initiative by a Vendor — Digital Central Infrastructure * Fintech Finance — Best Real-Time Payments — ACI Low Value Real-Time Payments™ * Fintech Finance — Best Cross-Border Payments — ACI Low Value Real-Time Payments™

References

External links