ACI Worldwide Inc. () is a

payment systems A payment system is any system used to settle financial transactions through the transfer of monetary value. This includes the institutions, instruments, people, rules, procedures, standards, and technologies that make its exchange possible.Biago ...

company headquartered in

Miami, Florida Miami ( ), officially the City of Miami, known as "the 305", "The Magic City", and "Gateway to the Americas", is a East Coast of the United States, coastal metropolis and the County seat, county seat of Miami-Dade County, Florida, Miami-Dade C ...

. ACI develops a broad line of software focused on facilitating real-time electronic payments. These products and services are used globally by

bank A bank is a financial institution that accepts deposits from the public and creates a demand deposit while simultaneously making loans. Lending activities can be directly performed by the bank or indirectly through capital markets. Because ...

financial intermediaries A financial intermediary is an institution or individual that serves as a middleman among diverse parties in order to facilitate financial transactions. Common types include commercial banks, investment banks, stockbrokers, pooled investment funds ...

such as third-party electronic

payment processor A payment processor is a system that enables financial transactions, commonly employed by a merchant, to handle transactions with customers from various channels such as credit cards and debit cards or bank accounts. They are usually broken dow ...

s, payment associations, switch interchanges,

merchant A merchant is a person who trades in commodities produced by other people, especially one who trades with foreign countries. Historically, a merchant is anyone who is involved in business or trade. Merchants have operated for as long as indust ...

s, corporations, and a wide range of transaction-generating endpoints, including

automated teller machine An automated teller machine (ATM) or cash machine (in British English) is an electronic telecommunications device that enables customers of financial institutions to perform financial transactions, such as cash withdrawals, deposits, fun ...

s ("ATM"), merchant

point of sale The point of sale (POS) or point of purchase (POP) is the time and place at which a retail transaction is completed. At the point of sale, the merchant calculates the amount owed by the customer, indicates that amount, may prepare an invoice f ...

("POS") terminals, bank branches,

mobile phone A mobile phone, cellular phone, cell phone, cellphone, handphone, hand phone or pocket phone, sometimes shortened to simply mobile, cell, or just phone, is a portable telephone that can make and receive calls over a radio frequency link whil ...

tablet computer A tablet computer, commonly shortened to tablet, is a mobile device, typically with a mobile operating system and touchscreen display processing circuitry, and a rechargeable battery in a single, thin and flat package. Tablets, being comput ...

corporation A corporation is an organization—usually a group of people or a company—authorized by the state to act as a single entity (a legal entity recognized by private and public law "born out of statute"; a legal person in legal context) and r ...

s, and internet commerce sites.

History

ACI was founded in

Omaha, Nebraska Omaha ( ) is the largest city in the U.S. state of Nebraska and the county seat of Douglas County. Omaha is in the Midwestern United States on the Missouri River, about north of the mouth of the Platte River. The nation's 39th-largest cit ...

as Applied Communications Inc, on September 1, 1975, to develop software for communications applications using the new NonStop computers from

Tandem Computers Tandem Computers, Inc. was the dominant manufacturer of fault-tolerant computer systems for Automated teller machine, ATM networks, banks, stock exchanges, telephone switching centers, and other similar commercial transaction processing applicati ...

. The founders were James Cody, Dave Willadsen, and Dennis Gates. Chuck Hackett, Charly Foglesong, and Mike May began ACI's relationship with Tandem. Early projects involved building systems to handle ATMs and front ends for

core banking Core banking is a banking service provided by a group of networked bank branches where customers may access their bank account and perform basic transactions from any of the member branch offices. Core banking is often associated with retail b ...

systems, which led to the launch of the first product, BASE24, in 1982. BASE24 was coined by a salesman to represent "Baseline Software for 24 hour-per-day system operations". BASE24 was expanded over time to service transactions from other channels, such as POS terminals and bank branch systems. The product portfolio grew to cover functions related to card transactions, such as clearing, settlement and

fraud detection In law, fraud is intentional deception to secure unfair or unlawful gain, or to deprive a victim of a legal right. Fraud can violate civil law (e.g., a fraud victim may sue the fraud perpetrator to avoid the fraud or recover monetary compensa ...

. The hardware support for these products was extended to suppliers IBM, HP,

Stratus Stratus may refer to: Weather *Stratus cloud, a cloud type **Nimbostratus cloud, a cloud type **Stratocumulus cloud, a cloud type **Altostratus cloud, a cloud type **Altostratus undulatus cloud, a cloud type **Cirrostratus cloud, a cloud type Mus ...

and

Sun Microsystems Sun Microsystems, Inc. (Sun for short) was an American technology company that sold computers, computer components, software, and information technology services and created the Java programming language, the Solaris operating system, ZFS, the ...

. In the 1990s, ACI's product range was expanded to cover

wholesale banking Wholesale banking is the provision of services by banks to larger customers or organizations such as mortgage brokers, large corporate clients, mid-sized companies, real estate developers and investors, international trade finance businesses, ins ...

payments with software for ACH transactions and

wire transfer Wire transfer, bank transfer, or credit transfer, is a method of electronic funds transfer from one person or entity to another. A wire transfer can be made from one bank account to another bank account, or through a transfer of cash at a cash ...

s leading to the acquisition of IntraNet, Inc. in 1998, and adding the Money Transfer System product. Since 1995, ACI has been publicly traded on

NASDAQ The Nasdaq Stock Market () (National Association of Securities Dealers Automated Quotations Stock Market) is an American stock exchange based in New York City. It is the most active stock trading venue in the US by volume, and ranked second ...

, initially under the name Transaction Systems Architects (TSA), and, since July 2007, under the name ACI Worldwide, Inc. (ACIW). Prior to that ACI had periods of ownership by

US West US West, Inc. (stylized as US WEST) was one of seven Regional Bell Operating Companies (RBOCs, also referred to as "Baby Bells"), created in 1983 under the Modification of Final Judgement (''United States v. Western Electric Co., Inc.'' 552 ...

and Tandem, and as a private company.

Acquisitions

*August 7, 1998: IntraNet, Inc. was acquired by ACI Worldwide predecessor Transaction Systems Architects, Inc. IntraNet, Inc. manufactured software systems to facilitate electronic payments. *January 11, 2001: MessagingDirect was acquired by Transaction System Architects Inc., for approximately 3.3 million shares of Transaction Systems' Class A Common Stock. *June 29, 2005: S2 Systems signed an agreement to sell substantially all of its assets to Transaction Systems Architects, Inc. *October 5, 2005: Restructuring of Transaction Systems Architects, Inc. into a highly focused organization, merging ACI, Insession and IntraNet into one operating unit under the name ''ACI Worldwide''. The name change became official in July, 2007. *August 8, 2006: P&H Solutions Inc., a provider of a Web-based corporate cash management product, was acquired by ACI Worldwide. *February 7, 2007: Visual WEB Solutions Inc., a financial banking applications company, was acquired. *November 17, 2009: Euronet Essentis was purchased by ACI to expand card issuing and merchant management capabilities *March 21, 2011: Acquisition of ISD Corporation was announced, to broaden the functionality of ACI's payments products for retailers. *February 13, 2012:

S1 Corporation S1 Corporation was an American software development company based in Norcross, Georgia which specialized in payment processing and financial services software for automated teller machines and retail point of sale applications, primarily for b ...

was acquired to broaden ACI's suite of payment offerings for financial organizations, processors and retailers. *March 11, 2013: Online Resources Corporation was acquired. *November 5, 2013:The purchase of Official Payments Holdings, a seller of electronic bill payment technology that processed about 20 million payments, worth more than $9 billion, annually, was completed. *July 21, 2014: An agreement was announced to acquire Retail Decisions (ReD). It was completed on August 12, 2014. *November 4, 2015: The acquisition of PAY.ON who provide white-label hosted payment gateway services was completed. *February 28, 2019: ACI enters agreement to acquire Speedpay, Western Union's U.S. bill pay business, for $750 million

References

External links

ACI Worldwide website
{{authority control Payment service providers Financial technology companies Financial software companies Financial services companies of the United States Financial services companies established in 1975 Software companies established in 1975 American companies established in 1975 Companies listed on the Nasdaq Software companies based in Florida Companies based in Miami 1970s establishments in Nebraska 1995 initial public offerings Software companies of the United States