ACI Worldwide Teams With Corporate One for FedNow Launch

ACI Worldwide says it is among the first payments firms certified for the U.S. Federal Reserve’s FedNow instant payments service, due to launch in July.

ACI worked with the Fed to identify Corporate One Federal Credit Union as its initial partner to integrate instant payments on FedNow via ACI’s Real-Time Payments Cloud, according to a Tuesday (May 16) news release.

“Partnering with ACI Worldwide will enable Corporate One, one of the largest corporate credit unions in the United States and a leader in real-time payments within the credit union industry, to extend its immediate payments solutions to the FedNow Service,” ACI said in the release.

Corporate One serves 14 of the top 50 credit unions in asset size and has more than 700 members in 45 states, reaching upwards of 28.5 million people, according to the release.

ACI added that it is working with Microsoft to operate FedNow on its cloud, “a multi-tenant SaaS platform in Microsoft Azure,” that supports connectivity to both The Clearing House Real-Time Payments network and FedNow.

“Transitioning to cloud-based infrastructure requires careful consideration, as payment systems are increasingly complex,” the company said.

“ACI Worldwide provides customers that have been running its mission-critical system for decades a proven transition path to new architectures.”

The news follows ACI Worldwide’s announcement last month that it had added its fraud protection service to its real-time payments cloud, a move aimed at U.S. customers who are preparing for the launch of FedNow.

“Every U.S. bank is now focused on real-time, instant payments as the runway to implement real-time payment rails prior to the launch of FedNow grows shorter,” Craig Ramsey, ACI Worldwide’s head of real-time payments, said at the time.

“Immediate integration of the world’s leading real-time payments systems, combined with best-in-class, artificial intelligence (AI) powered fraud protection, will be defining characteristics for banks leading in next-generation payments ecosystems.”

As PYMNTS has written, America’s payments ecosystem will be transformed when FedNow debuts, as its “real-time rail will speed up money movement between accounts, transform bill payments and bring instant payments to a variety of use cases yet to be imagined.”

“It’s a full-featured service that can deliver value on day one,” Federal Reserve SVP, Head of Payments Industry Relations Connie Theien told PYMNTS, “but we’ve also designed the infrastructure so that we can enhance the services in an agile and iterative way … it’s our vision of a ‘Cadillac’ of infrastructure.”

Also this week, payments processor Jack Henry said that it too had integrated with FedNow, with 20-plus clients taking part in the program.