ACI Worldwide (Nasdaq: TSAI), a leading international provider of enterprise payment solutions, today celebrates a ten year business partnership with Absa, the leading South African bank with the largest retail acquiring business in South Africa.
Since 1995, Absa has used ACI's flagship BASE24 software to run a secure payments system over the bank's entire ATM and POS networks. The bank has also signed a new five year BASE24 extension with plans to migrate to BASE24-es, ACI's next generation platform for payments processing, to increase the functionality and flexibility of its payments network.
Absa first contracted ACI to help reduce its operational costs and create efficiencies in its payments infrastructure while complying with new industry requirements such as Europay, MasterCard and Visa. ACI's BASE24 ATM and POS solutions have provided Absa with a scalable, modern payments architecture, which has secured additional revenues on both the ATM and POS channels for the bank. The platform has evolved with Absa and has grown from supporting Absa's network of 1,600 ATMs in 1996 to over 5,233 ATMs today. ACI's ATM device handler was developed specifically to support Absa's extensive list of ATM services and transactions. The device handler ensured Absa was less dependent on a single ATM supplier, increasing flexibility and bringing new services and functionality.
Since then, ATM traffic has more than doubled and now stands at a peak rate of 37 million transactions per month. POS volumes have grown from less than half a million transactions per month in 1996 to around 11.7 million per month today.
Absa's migration to BASE24-es will enable Absa to achieve enhanced functionality and platform independence, with a unique enterprise services architecture that will allow it to improve profitability, enhance customer service and improve time to market for new products. Absa will benefit from added fraud management and dynamic transaction authorisation capabilities.
"The technology expertise and world class e-payments solutions provided by ACI Worldwide have helped Absa Bank achieve success in the South African market," said Leon Viviers, business systems manager of Absa. "We always strive to ensure the best possible customer experience when using our e-payments networks. BASE24 fulfils a fundamental role in ensuring the Absa ATM and POS delivery systems are available and efficient 24/7. We look forward to the continued success of our relationship with ACI."
"South Africa continues to be an important market for ACI and we are extremely pleased to have played a key role in the development of one of the leading banks in the region," said Richard Launder, managing director of ACI Worldwide EMEA. "ACI will continue to deliver the very best service levels backed by its dedicated client service operations in Johannesburg. We are delighted to celebrate this decade of success and look forward to sharing further achievements with Absa."
Earlier this year, Barclays, one of the world's top ten banks, acquired a majority stake in Absa as part of its drive to expand its global product and international retail and commercial banking businesses in attractive markets outside the UK, reinforcing Absa's leading position in the South African retail banking industry.