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ACI Worldwide Inc. early Tuesday announced it is offering a real-time payments service to U.S. merchants and launched a platform to ease acceptance of digital wallets for merchants in more than 70 countries.
ACI Instant Pay is aimed at easing acceptance of online and mobile transactions, as well as payments in physical stores, with real-time movement of funds. The service, based on software the Miami-based company has developed for faster payments and available through a single application programming interface integration, comes a few months before the expected launch of FedNow, the real-time transaction platform built by the Federal Reserve. ACI previously forecast that the volume of real-time transactions in the U.S. market would total 8.9 billion by 2026, more than quadrupling the 1.8 billion seen in 2021.
While the new service is available through online, mobile-app, and in-store channels, the in-store option will be presented to consumers via a QR code appearing on a screen visible to shoppers. Consumers will scan the code to trigger payment
ACI argues Instant Pay will help relieve merchants of the burden of credit card interchange costs while offering immediate liquidity and virtually eliminating the risk of chargebacks. Only insufficient funds will trigger a declined transaction, the company says. Information was not immediately available regarding probable fees for the new service. ACI did not immediately respond to a request for additional information.
Still, ACI sees the service having an immediate appeal not only for merchants but for consumers, as well. “Many shoppers are frustrated by traditional payment options. They want more choice, greater transparency, and better control, online and in-store,” said Debbie Guerra, chief product officer, in a statement.
Simultaneously, ACI launched its Wallet Hub, which it bills as a single platform for more than 200 global and regional wallets used online, through apps, or at physical checkouts. Like the real-time platform, the hub is available through an API integration to the company’s payments-orchestration layer, a move ACI says will help merchants avoid managing multiple wallet integrations and dealing with technology changes later on.
The move comes as nearly 53% of consumers globally used a digital wallet in 2021, up by 33% over five years, according to data cited by ACI.
Overall, the new platform is expected to allow merchants “to stay flexible and innovative without the high cost and compliance burdens associated with integrating and maintaining multiple individual digital wallets,” said Basant Singh, global head of the merchant segment at ACI, in a statement.
