Cloud payments have become a strategic priority for financial institutions seeking greater flexibility, scalability, and speed in an increasingly digital marketplace. As consumer expectations evolve and new payment methods emerge, banks and payment providers are looking for technology platforms that can support rapid innovation while reducing infrastructure costs. Cloud-based deployment models offer organizations the ability to modernize legacy systems, improve operational efficiency, and bring new products to market faster.
The shift toward cloud payments is also being fueled by advancements in data analytics, artificial intelligence, and real-time processing capabilities. Financial institutions that embrace cloud-based payment infrastructure can better respond to changing market demands, support digital transformation initiatives, and position themselves to compete with both traditional rivals and emerging fintech innovators.
ACI Worldwide (NASDAQ: ACIW), a leading global provider of real-time electronic payment and banking solutions, today announced a global strategic collaboration with Microsoft via the Microsoft Partner Network to support the payments industry’s rapid adoption of technology deployed in the public cloud. As one of Microsoft’s top 10 global ISV partners in the financial services industry, ACI will support the company’s industry growth and extend the reach of its own market-leading Universal Payments portfolio through Microsoft Azure.
The industry has begun to reap the benefits of cloud, including lower total cost of ownership (TCO), increased scalability, speed to market, enhanced development tools, and the integration of platform services such as data analytics and artificial intelligence. The cloud, a vital component of today’s service delivery model, enables banks and other organizations to capitalize on new market opportunities and access new channels. By deploying ACI’s UP solutions through the cloud, as well as via traditional on-premises and on-demand implementations, banks, intermediaries, merchants and corporates can thrive amid the unprecedented digital disruption.
The collaboration will initially enable ACI Universal Payments technology to be licensed by customers for implementation powered by Azure. Through this relationship, ACI on-premises customers will benefit from enhanced security, as well as a reduction in long-term capital expenditure, adopting a scalable model for cloud-based infrastructure—this will be particularly advantageous for neo banks and innovators within existing banks and intermediaries.
“We have witnessed increased global interest in and rapid adoption of ACI’s payments technology in the cloud from both new and established organizations,” said Craig Saks, chief operating officer, ACI Worldwide. “In fact, we have secured two significant acquirer clients running our UP Retail Payments solution on Microsoft Azure. As global trends, changing business models and innovation create a new set of challenges for the world of payments, this collaboration will allow banks and other organizations committed to innovating and moving to the cloud to become more agile, deploying new payment services more quickly. In addition, they can develop proof of concepts, and launch and test them in the marketplace at a low cost – this is already gaining traction among our customers.”
Bill Borden, corporate vice president of financial services at Microsoft Corp. said, “More leading banks worldwide are embracing the cloud, and partnering with ACI on this key growth initiative reinforces that trajectory. With the high level of stability, resiliency, and performance of Microsoft Azure integrated with ACI’s payments solutions, ACI can offer organizations the ability to provide a wider range of services to their end customers.”
ACI’s UP family of solutions connects more ways to pay with more payment capabilities than any other provider. The solutions orchestrate thousands of payment capabilities – business services such as authorization, authentication, tokenization and more – for card-based and digital transactions including industry-standard real-time payments applications. These capabilities are combined in unique ways, forming the UP solutions that perform the payment functions that banks, corporates, merchants and intermediaries need.
As payment ecosystems continue to evolve, cloud payments are becoming an essential component of long-term modernization strategies. The ability to scale services, reduce costs, and accelerate innovation gives financial institutions a significant advantage in a market defined by constant change and growing customer expectations.
Partnerships that combine payment expertise with leading cloud infrastructure providers are helping organizations navigate this transition more effectively. As cloud technology adoption expands across the financial services industry, investments in payment modernization, real-time payments, and cloud-based infrastructure will play a critical role in shaping the future of digital commerce.
About ACI Worldwide
ACI Worldwide, the Universal Payments (UP) company, powers electronic payments for more than 5,100 organizations around the world. More than 1,000 of the largest banks and intermediaries, as well as thousands of global merchants, rely on ACI to execute $14 trillion each day in payments and securities. In addition, myriad organizations utilize our electronic bill presentment and payment services. Through our comprehensive suite of software solutions delivered on customers’ premises or through ACI’s private cloud, we provide real-time, immediate payments capabilities and enable the industry’s most complete omni-channel payments experience. To learn more about ACI, please visit www.aciworldwide.com. You can also find us on Twitter @ACI_Worldwide.