Mastercard and ACI Worldwide, a global provider of real-time digital payment software and solutions, have announced a partnership to provide a wide range of real-time payment solutions globally.
The two companies will initially collaborate to offer best-in-class central infrastructure, payments localisation and access solutions to central banks, scheme operators, financial institutions, payment service providers, and other organisations launching real-time payment initiatives.
The announcement comes alongside a recent study that analysed global real-time, account-to-account payment volumes and forecasts across 30 global markets. The research, titled Prime Time for Real Time, projected a Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 23.4% from 2019 to 2024. While existing schemes around the world are adding new participants and value-added services, additional country and regional schemes are launching each year with more than 20 schemes in varying planning stages.
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“With more countries and regions embarking on the modernisation of their payments systems to capitalise on real-time technologies and customer demand, the market opportunity is significant,” said Paul Stoddart, President of New Payment Platforms, Mastercard. “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, driving choice and innovation to market participants and end customers.”
With a complimentary 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.
The new joint solution delivers benefits that include:
- Flexible deployment options — Mastercard and ACI collaboration provides deployment options that range from a fully managed service in the cloud, to supporting on-premise software for government, central bank and system operator-owned platforms
- Ability to support existing local market requirements — the joint solution reduces the amount of time to onboard participants and provides flexibility to accelerate real-time adoption
- ISO20022-first approach — joint real-time capabilities support organisations today and tomorrow and provide translation to and from existing standards
- Digital services — further capabilities to support new digital services such as a request to pay, proxy services and biller services – Global proposition, local expertise —Mastercard and ACI collaboration brings together global reach, international experience and the local market knowledge