ACI Worldwide and STET: European Instant Cross-Border Transactions Reach New Record High

• 50 million instant cross-border payments were processed by STET and ACI Worldwide in the last 12 months
• STET’s CSM platform leverages ACI technology to offer interoperability with the other major European instant payment schemes

Instant cross-border payments processed by STET, one of the leading European clearing and settlement systems, (CSM), and ACI Worldwide (NASDAQ: ACIW), a global leader in mission-critical, real-time payments software, have reached a new record high. STET, which processed more than 35 billion transactions in 2023, representing a daily average of more than €25 billion, processed more than 50 million cross-border real-time transactions over the last 12 months, a number that is expected to increase by more than 50% in 2024.

STET and ACI Worldwide have been working together since 2017, offering banks and payment service providers (PSP) across Europe a seamless, end-to-end solution for the Single Euro Payments Area (SEPA) Instant Credit Transfer (SCT Inst) scheme, thus facilitating the transfer and settlement of instant payments and contributing to making instant payments a strong foundation towards a unified European payments system. STET’s platform uses ACI Low Value Real-Time Payments as a SaaS service, offering sophisticated routing and processing capabilities to enable its 20 member banks to connect directly to the European schemes TIPS and RT1, providing full pan-European reachability and interoperability for instant payments.

Instant payment transactions across SEPA, including the 27 European Union (EU) member states, are expected to grow rapidly, driven by the new EU Instant Payments Regulation passed in February 2024. According to ACI’s 2024 Prime Time for Real-Time report, transactions across Europe are expected to rise from 17.2 billion in 2023 to 38.6 billion in 2028. By 2028, instant payments are forecast to account for 13% of all electronic payments in Europe, up from 8% in 2023.

“Our partnership with ACI Worldwide has gone from strength to strength, and we are proud to have reached this milestone. By leveraging ACI’s state-of-the-art technology, banks and PSPs across Europe can connect to STET’s Instant Payments CSM quickly and cost-effectively, giving broad European reachability,” said Regis Folbaum, CEO, STET. “Our platform enables banks and PSPs to process instant payments securely and at scale, so they can benefit from instant payment growth opportunities, while also providing the best customer experience.”

“ACI is uniquely positioned to provide interoperability and connectivity to all European and global schemes, which is crucial as efforts to build cross-border payment networks accelerate across the world,” said Nick Craig, head of Europe, ACI Worldwide. “Central infrastructures, banks, and PSPs are using ACI to maximize the use of their real-time rails and position themselves for the future growth of instant payments, whilst offering new and innovative service for their customers.”

ACI currently powers 26 domestic and pan-regional real-time schemes across six continents — including 10 central infrastructures — providing solutions to central banks, participant banks, fintechs, and other PSPs. Globally, ACI covers approximately one-third of the countries that offer real-time payments services, reaching about 3 billion people served by various organizations, including central governments, payment networks, banks, financial institutions, and fintech companies.

About ACI Worldwide

ACI Worldwide is a global leader in mission-critical, real-time payments software. Our proven, secure and scalable software solutions enable leading corporations, fintechs, and financial disruptors to process and manage digital payments, power omni-commerce payments, present and process bill payments, and manage fraud and risk. We combine our global footprint with a local presence to drive the real-time digital transformation of payments and commerce.

About STET

STET is a critical operator for its clients, the banks and the banking communities it serves every day. As a Systemically Important Payment System (SIPS), STET commits to respecting the highest level of security, rigour, and transparency. Since its creation 20 years ago, STET’s vision is that European harmonisation will not preclude market diversity. Hence, we develop flexible and sustainable architectures, designed to host the various needs of our clients with user-friendly multi-channel services. Having a consistent 360° service offering including a clearing system able to handle the whole range of payment instruments (domestic and SEPA) as well as a routing and authorization network means that we can support all payment challenges.

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