ACI Worldwide, a global provider of electronic payments software and solutions, has entered into an agreement to acquire a UK-based Euronet Essentis (Essentis), a division of Euronet Worldwide. ACI will market the Essentis solutions globally to financial service providers under ACI brand.
Essentis provides card issuing and merchant management products to customers globally. Essentis said that its customers are able to handle large scale projects, with one organization acquiring transactions from more than 350,000 merchants and another organization issuing more than 12m cards using its products.
Essentis products are multi-platform and they have been benchmarked on IBM System z. This supports ACI’s alliance with IBM and enables the company to continue to offer the solutions for the market on the platform that is used in banks and payment processors around the world.
Philip Heasley, CEO of ACI Worldwide, said: “The acquisition of Essentis enriches and deepens our retail banking product portfolio, and adds value and choice for our existing customer base in the back office space. The functionality and agility of Essentis products, which use technology and architecture similar to current ACI products, will enable us to expand our service-oriented architecture solutions.”
Louis Blatt, chief product officer at ACI Worldwide said: “The acquisition of Essentis enables us to combine leading products across the retail banking market and positions us at the forefront of the future of payment systems. The Essentis products will be an important part of ACI Agile Payments Solution.
“They are built on an SOA architecture, and will deliver a range of different services that are fundamental to helping financial organizations become truly agile, as well as driving consolidation and operational efficiencies that can give them an essential competitive advantage.”
