As financial institutions look to more effectively compete in today’s rapidly changing payments environment, ACI’s API manager capabilities are designed to support customers in developing a strategic approach to the emerging open banking payments ecosystem, and to provide the tools to meet established and emerging regulatory requirements including PSD2 and GDPR.

ACI’s new UP API manager capabilities are designed to:

• Connect to any front-end gateway
• Connect to any back-end system that a bank runs
• Provide a middleware API layer to help orchestrate the message flows and business logic to allow banks and external developers to define and build appropriate APIs
• Empower banks to manage the levels of authentication and authorization required to maintain control in the data being requested and accessed
• Enable banks to meet customer expectations for a seamless payment experience

The solution capabilities support ACI’s Universal Payments strategy and help banks lay the foundation for their own enterprise-wide open banking strategy. Banks can choose and build the endpoints to their systems, and manage which gateways they connect to and utilize.

“The delivery of ACI’s new API manager capabilities is a key milestone in the realization of our Universal Payments strategy,” said Mandy Killam, executive vice president, ACI Worldwide. “Rather than a tactical ‘quick-fix’ to meet the PSD2 mandate deadline, our new capabilities will help clients protect their existing business, grow revenues in the short term and place them in the pole position of the open banking payments ecosystem. We will give them the tools and ability to monetize their open API strategy quickly and effectively.”

The API manager capabilities will be available throughout ACI’s UP portfolio of on-premise and cloud-based solutions.

Universal Payments (UP) is at the core of ACI’s strategy to provide the broadest, most integrated suite of electronic payments solutions in the market. UP is ACI’s vision of enabling real-time, any-to-any electronic payments for financial institutions, intermediaries, merchants and billers. Its unique underlying technology framework, the UP Framework, consists of flexible, open payment services that enable organizations to innovate quickly, reduce risk and gain choice, flexibility and control over their payment strategies.