ACI Worldwide (NASDAQ: ACIW), a leading global provider of real-time electronic payment and banking solutions, today announced support for the European Payments Council (EPC) SEPA Instant rulebook standard ISO 20022 within its Universal Payments (UP) solutions portfolio, including  UP Immediate Payments and UP Real-Time Payments. With this support, ACI enables payment service providers to connect to any domestic or pan-European EPC based instant payments scheme.

Financial institutions in Europe are currently preparing for the launch of several domestic and pan-European schemes, including the EBA RT1 pan-European SEPA SCT Inst scheme which is due to go live next month. Many payment service providers are scrutinizing the network options available to them, as they try to decide which schemes they need to join to offer reach and ubiquity to their customers.

ACI Worldwide is offering all financial institutions and PSPs a multi-scheme solution based on a standard European SEPA Inst gateway that can be quickly modified to suit the requirements of any domestic or pan-European instant scheme. The ACI gateway can support the connectivity and functional requirements of any real time CSM, including ECB TIPS, EBA RT1, Equens and STET.  It can easily support other non-Euro based schemes in development, such as Hungary, Slovakia and Romania.

In addition, ACI was recently certified for SIAnet network services, used to connect to various pan-European schemes including EBA RT1. The validation criteria used are defined by SIAnet according to their specific standards for managing the participants within their network.

Currently ACI is supporting Rabobank, a Dutch-based global multinational bank, which utilizes UP Immediate Payments, to move forward with their implementation of the Equens SEPA Inst scheme.

Last week, ACI announced a strategic agreement with STET, one of the leading European CSMs, to deliver an end-to-end real-time payments solution to payment services providers (PSPs) across Europe.

Barry Kislingbury, Director Solution Consulting Immediate Payments, ACI Worldwide comments:

“ACI’s standard European SEPA Inst gateway offers the utmost flexibility for our customers as the implementation will not be dependent on the availability of an individual instant scheme. Our approach offers payment service providers the opportunity to real time enable their payments platform now—and to add connectivity to any instant scheme as they become available.”

“We not only provide our customers with a technical solution, but also payment processing functionality, guidance on compliance, fraud, scheme rules, testing and certification, as well as support throughout the complex on-boarding process.”