News

ACI agrees to recommend NCR's APTRA to its users

February 25, 2003

OMAHA, Neb. and DAYTON, Ohio -- ACI Worldwide (Nasdaq:TSAI) and NCR Corporation announced an exclusive referral partnership that includes plans to jointly develop and market advanced ATM software solutions.

Under terms of the multi-year partnership, ACI will recommend NCR's open architecture APTRA Edge software to users of its BASE24 online transaction processing system.

In addition, the two companies will work closely to extend APTRA Edge and BASE24 to support the recently ratified IFX standard for ATM transaction processing, according to a news release.

The new standard, established by the IFX Forum, enables ATM and point-of-sale deployers to use a common messaging platform across all delivery channels, offering lower cost and faster time to market for new financial services.

In an effort to move the IFX standard forward, ACI first announced development initiatives with NCR in June 2002. Under the new agreement, the two companies will work closely together to bring an end-to-end IFX solution to market, according to the release.

(See related story Forum hopes to help ATMs speak same language)

Jim Piggot, NCR's general manager and vice president for software and services, said in the release, "Combining the power of NCR and ACI to deliver market-leading self-service solutions is a significant event. ACI's market leadership and new transaction authorization solutions will clearly add value to what our customers can do with APTRA Edge."

Mark Vipond, president of ACI, called the partnership with NCR "a key element of ACI's strategy to support the upcoming wave of ATM renewal."  He noted in the release that the latest versions of ACI software allow banks to personalize ATM services, support advanced transactions and implement automated key distribution.

ACI announced last month that it is also working with German ATM manufacturer Wincor Nixdorf to establish an IFX-based proof of concept in a common customer project by mid 2003 and to offer general availability of an IFX product in 2003's second half.