Product suite
While ACI is now seeking to move users to a range of newer offerings, it is emphasising that it will not leave any old application users without support. For retail payments, the traditional workhorse was Base24; for wholesale payments, it was MTS. The latter is still the way forward but Base24 is now no longer actively marketed, with the emphasis on the much newer, open systems-based Base24-eps.
Base24
Base24 is used by a large number of the world’s payment heavyweights, comprising both banks and third party processors. It was developed on Tandem’s proprietary NonStop platform, which was a strength in the early days but became a problem as this system was overtaken by open systems. There have been some innovative uses, such as to underpin an Islamic payments switch for Muslims making the annual Hajj pilgrimage to Mecca, developed by Malaysian company, e-Kencana, working with Saudi Arabian bank, Al Rahji Bank. Of the choice of Base24 in 2007, e-Kencana managing director, Shahzad Sultan, said: ‘Most banks worldwide were already using Base24. There are other solutions in the world but ACI was robust, it had the backing of the international banking community. There was already a support system there; it was decided to latch onto that support system. It was basically a speed to market strategy.’
Of course, rival suppliers see the Base24 user base as a
prime target. One of the most vocal from this perspective has been Russian supplier, BPC Banking Technologies. In October 2010, BPC’s executive vice president, Richard Phillimore, described its Smartvista suite as ‘a very credible alternative for the banks looking to replace the Base24 payment system from ACI Worldwide’. Banks around the world were looking for alternatives, he felt, following ACI’s announcement that it was gradually winding down Base24 and encouraging users to move to Base24-eps (BPC had just gained the boost of a breakthrough in ACI’s US backyard, at a third party processor, Electronic Funds Transfer Experts (EFX) Corp, for new store value card issuing). Smartvista has since been selected to replace Base24 at the likes of Artajasa, Indonesia’s largest ATM and card processor, and at an unnamed Indian bank during 2012. By this stage, Daragh O’Byrne, chief marketing officer at BPC, said Smartvista was now also positioned as a ‘faster, low- risk’ alternative to Base24-eps. The solution has also become a relatively common choice for banks seeking to replace other legacy ACI offerings, which are viewed by users as outdated. Other vendors are also exploiting this opportunity: Banco
Occidental de Descuento in Venezuela replaced Base24 on Tandem with Postilion’s suite, with the project starting in 2006 and with flexibility, resources and cost cited as reasons.
Base24-eps
ACI set about attempting to overhaul its old product, with the rewrite encapsulated within ‘Base24-es’ (extended services). ACI was touting Base24-es as ‘next generation’ software. Underlying coding was to be centred on object-oriented C++ and Java. The re-write was intended to bring support for a wider range of platforms than its predecessor, including Sun, IBM and HP. It was stated that users of the original Tandem-based Base24 would be able to migrate or could retain their existing platform and link into the es version to take advantage of the latter’s features. A few banks bought into this, including Abu Dhabi Commercial Bank (ADCB). It was a new ACI customer and signed in late 2004 as it sought to consolidate two systems for POS and ATM transaction authentication, routing, switching and authorisation. The bank was looking for a centralised system for its ATM and POS networks to aid compliance with the Europay, Mastercard, Visa mandate calling for Chip and PIN cards. ADCB planned to run Base24-es on Sun Solaris. ACI then acquired Germany-based Electronic Payment
Systems AG (EPS). The mid-2006 deal was valued at €28.2 million. At the time of the deal, the emphasis was largely on extending ACI’s European presence. At this time, around one- third of ACI’s business was outside the US, and it had little presence in Germany. A recent market study carried out by ACI indicated that Germany was the third largest electronic payments market in the world, and with significant growth predicted. Here, as elsewhere in Europe, the advent of SEPA was expected to cause considerable payment systems replacement activity.
EPS was set up in late 1998 and had grown to 70 staff. Its two founders, Christian Jaron and Johann Praschinger, moved across to ACI. EPS’s payment engine reflected the relatively young age of the company and was based on reasonably new technology (it was written in C++). Customers gained by EPS AG included ATOS Worldwide Processing, CardProcess, Citibank, Commerzbank, Deutsche Bank, Pluscard, UBS and Visa International. EPS also brought testing and simulation tools, which would fit with ACI’s product set (most of EPS’s large payment system users had these); ACI had applications such as its fraud detection software that would fit with EPS’s suite. EPS also had a Romanian development centre and this would become part of ACI’s evolving offshore development resources. ACI was in the early stages of setting up a global product development centre in Ireland.
Payment Systems & Suppliers Report |
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