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

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 with full pan-European reachability and contributing to making instant payment a strong foundation towards a unified European payment means.

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, hence 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 payments 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.