STET processes more than 22 billion transactions per year. Its CORE platform is the largest ACH in Europe with more than 52 percent market share of euro transactions cleared in clearing systems. As STET prepares to launch its Instant Payments CSM to the European market in November 2017 and ACI launches its real-time instant payments solution for banks at the European level, the two companies are working together to deliver to banks a seamless end-to-end solution for SCT Inst. This will facilitate the immediate execution of an instant payment from sender to receiver in seconds with full pan-European reachability.

“ACI is a leader in real-time payments solutions with its Universal Payments (UP) solution set. By leveraging this agreement, new and existing STET members will be able to connect with STET’s Instant Payments CSM quickly and cost effectively, giving broad European reachability,” said Jean-Marie Vallée, CEO, STET. “Our goal is to make real-time payments a reality for all payment service providers so they can benefit from the innovation being brought to market with SCT Inst while providing the best customer experience. Working with ACI will help us realize broad reach and faster adoption through ACI’s multiple ways to connect—via cloud or installed directly at the PSP.”

“Financial institutions—and their respective customers—are realizing the benefits of instant payments and are eager for these capabilities to become ubiquitous within the region,” said Craig Saks, chief operating officer, ACI Worldwide. “Central infrastructures like STET are turning to ACI because they recognize our capabilities to help make their networks successful.”

“Our decision to work together with STET reinforces ACI’s commitment to the European market and our desire to support financial institutions and PSPs on their journey toward Instant Payments,” said Paul Thomalla, senior vice president, Corporate Relations and Development, ACI Worldwide.

ACI has an unmatched global customer base of financial institutions and payment service providers using its UP Immediate Payments solution. In the UK, it has been used by financial institutions to access the UK Faster Payments scheme since its launch in 2008. Currently, more than half of the direct participants of the UK’s Faster Payments Scheme use ACI’s solutions. In addition to an on-premise real-time payments solution, ACI offers a turn-key cloud solution that reduces infrastructure costs and allows institutions to easily scale based on transaction volumes. This creates new cost-efficiencies and the ability for FIs to quickly respond to market changes.

Additionally, ACI has customers using UP Immediate Payments to access Singapore FAST and Australian NPP (New Payments Platform). ACI serves on the ISO 20022 Real-Time Payments Group, the EPC Instant Payments Technology Group, payments and security task forces for the U.S. Federal Reserve, and chairs the IPFA rules working group.

STET supports 100 percent of the banks in France and Belgium and is globally acknowledged as a paragon of success in the payments processing world. STET is making ready a pan-European Instant Payments Clearing & Settlement Mechanism (CSM) to support the SCT Inst scheme from the EPC. This state-of-the-art offering is initially being offered at a Pan-European level both to PSPs directly and national ACHs on a white label basis. The Pan-Europe offering includes SEPA reach through connections to other European Instant Payment systems.