ACI and Mexipay Launch Real-Time Payment Partnership

ACI Worldwide has teamed with Mexipay to promote real-time payment use in Mexico.

The partnership, announced Tuesday (Nov. 28), will see Mexipay use ACI’s payment platform to deploy ISO 20022 real-time payments and other payment services in Mexico.

“Mexico was an early adopter of real-time payments, with its Sistema de Pagos Electronicos Interbancarios system in place since 2004, and the growth of real-time payments has gained traction in recent years, with adoption among the banked population at about one in five, despite the country’s highly unbanked population,” the companies said in a news release.

According to the release, Mexipay’s real-time payments technology is expected to go live early next year, using ISO 20022, a new global standard for secure and efficient messaging between financial institutions.

“With this partnership, Mexipay will be able to provide access to the unattended small to medium banks segment, as well as the merchant industry, through the implementation and operation of our platform built around ACI’s solutions, delivering managed services to the market, something that was not possible before in México,” said Fabian Uribe, co-founder and CEO of Mexipay. “That means a complete set of new opportunities.”

PYMNTS collaborated with ACI Worldwide recently for the report “ISO 20022 Implementation Highlights Real-Time Payments’ Value,” which found that while consumers are incorporating real-time payments into their financial activities, there is a lack of clarity among consumers regarding what qualifies as a real-time payment.

Just 29% of consumers who say they have made real-time payments believed that the payment cleared immediately. Twenty-eight percent of consumers said that it took more than a day for their “real-time payment” to be processed, while close to 6% said it took more than a week. 

“While this gap in understanding poses a challenge, the growing demand for immediacy and transparency in transactions is a clear signal to businesses to catch up or risk missing out,” PYMNTS wrote. “However, only 36% of executives overseeing consumer collections at large firms recognize the importance of real-time payments, indicating a slow response from key sectors in meeting consumer expectations.”

Meanwhile, additional research by PYMNTS Intelligence and TCH finds that companies value real-time payments for their speed but also their security.

“Traditional payment methods are highly vulnerable to fraudsters, with a staggering 63% of organizations falling victim to check fraud,” PYMNTS wrote last week.

Real-time payment rails address this problem with a higher level of security against scammers, leading 62% of middle-market companies to choose this option.