ACI's clearing solution, ACI Interchange, opens up new markets for financial institutions and processors by enabling support for UnionPay transactions while extending infrastructure options to include IBM System p™ AIX.

UnionPay has issued more than 3.5 billion cards worldwide (Nilson Report) and it is projected to continue its significant growth. UnionPay cards are accepted in more than 140 countries and its rapid growth presents a significant opportunity for financial institutions and processors facing revenue pressures or wanting to extend their commercial offerings with a growing brand. ACI Interchange already supports incoming and outgoing clearing and settlement processes for transactions underpinned by EMV and magnetic stripe payment cards for the major international schemes; this has now been extended to include UnionPay.

In addition to adding UnionPay support, ACI Interchange now also offers support for IBM System p™ AIX, which is in line with ACI's end-to-end consumer payments solution. This enables lowering of IT costs through platform consolidation, while providing customers with more platform choice. Consolidated platform choice directly addresses reducing costs and simplifying infrastructure requirements, thus alleviating maintenance burdens and improving margins.

With ACI Interchange, financial institutions and processors worldwide are able to:
• Eliminate multiple systems with one solution that offers native support for all international payment networks
• Remove the burden of maintaining multiple scheme formats, regular scheme mandates and differences between scheme processing requirements
• Save substantial scheme fees and be proactively compliant with complex interchange requirements

"In collaboration with our customers, we have strengthened our clearing solution to open up new markets and lower costs," said Jeff Hale, Senior Vice President, Retail Payments, A Payments, ACI Worldwide. "CustomCustomers have previously benefited from using ACI Interchange to save on maintenance costs and reduce scheme fees, and now that we offer UnionPay, they can access this important and fast-growing network."