ACI Worldwide (NASDAQ: ACIW), a leading global provider of bank real-time electronic payment solutions, today announced that it is aiding fast bank adoption of real-time payments in Saudi Arabia with its UP Real-Time Payments solution.

ACI’s solution offers participating Saudi banks faster and lower-risk onboarding to the new real-time services through its global partnership with Vocalink, a Mastercard company and a leading technology provider, which announced last week that it has partnered with the Saudi Arabian Monetary Authority (SAMA) to launch real-time payments in the Kingdom.

The partnership between ACI Worldwide and Vocalink combines Vocalink’s IPS solution for central payment infrastructures and ACI’s UP Real-Time Payments solution for financial institutions. Leveraging success from the US market, the combined offering will accelerate the availability of real-time payments in Saudi Arabia by re-using existing, proven product level integration, thus helping banks to quickly join the SAMA scheme using ACI’s solution.

“ACI’s Real-Time Payments will provide Saudi Arabia’s financial services sector with the industry’s most complete platform to launch innovative new services based around real-time payments, while minimizing delivery risk,” said Craig Saks, Chief Operating Officer, ACI Worldwide. “ACI already powers real-time payments in the US, across Europe, Asia and Australia – a reflection of the growing ubiquity of real-time payments globally. Our partnership with Vocalink is part of what ACI already does, and the extension of our partnership to Saudi Arabia further solidifies ACI’s ability to help banks leverage speed-to-market for access to real-time payments.”

“As the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia pushes forward with the modernization of its financial services sector, it joins a growing list of countries that are making real-time payments a cornerstone of their digital payments transformation efforts,” said Paul Stoddart, President, New Payment Platforms, Mastercard. “Our offering is a powerful proposition to Saudi Arabia’s financial services sector to activate a real-time processing environment in an expedited manner, improve efficiency in payments systems and ready the Kingdom for a digital payments future.”

ACI Worldwide currently supports real-time payments around the world, including live customers in Australia, Singapore, Thailand, Malaysia, Europe and throughout North America. ACI has a long history working with financial institutions in Saudi Arabia and won the award for ‘Best Use of Emerging or Innovative Technology’ at the 2019 MEFTECH Innovation awards. Click here to visit our Saudi landing page.