ACI Worldwide Inc. is upgrading its payments server to enhance security systems and marketing processes for retail clients, including the ability to offer consumers immediate rewards at the point of sale, a company executive says.
The enhancement comes four months after Omaha-based ACI acquired ISD Corp. and integrated the two companies’ offerings.
Besides improved marketing and loyalty options, the new Retail Commerce Server provides merchants with more tools for security and PCI compliance, Rob Seward, ACI’s product line director for merchant retail, tells ISO&Agent Weekly.
ACI Worldwide Inc. provides payments system software for the financial and retail industries, and 80% of its retail clients are grocery or supermarket chains, Seward says.
Payment Card Industry Data Security Standards compliance is critical for merchants, and the Retail Commerce Server provides a tokenization method, or the random generation of proxy numbers to replace credit card numbers at the point-of-sale for data security, Seward says.
Merchants can also use a single-token feature for consumers purchasing products online, Seward notes.
“Instead of re-keying all of the payment data for an online shopper, a token associated with that shopper would provide the merchant with the shopper’s online profile. When the token comes to ACI, then the server processes the transaction,” Seward says.
Because bringing point-of-sale applications and networks into PCI compliance annually can be costly for merchants, the Retail Commerce Server In-Store applications allow merchants to remove the point-of-sale from handling card-sensitive data by isolating it on the server.
The upgraded server provides merchants who have created loyalty programs the ability to “offer customer rewards in real time” by monitoring the program and alerting the merchant that a consumer has qualified for a reward, Seward says.
“The server uses a unique identifier of the customer, whether it is based on his preferred payment method, or a loyalty card, or some other form of ID,” Seward says. “Once a card is swiped, it would tell the merchant what reward or what other program the customer is eligible for.”
Seward says Retail Commerce Server quickly authorizes transactions, whether by card swipe, e-commerce or mobile pay, by determining what type of card or payment method is being used and routing to the various networks for an authorization.
The faster transaction-authorization speed and adaptability to future payments processes of ACI’s integrated offering appears likely to draw marketplace interest, says Tom McCrohan, a consultant with Philadelphia-based Janney Montgomery Scott LLC.
“With so much going on in payments now, the key question for ACI in helping with fraud detection and PCI compliance costs for merchants, would be how (is their software) going to handle all of the new alternative payments stuff, and the recent push by Visa with the EMV card,” McCrohan says.
Retailers using Retail Commerce Server have the option of downloading the application on a Windows, IBM or Oracle-based server at the retail company corporate headquarters or using “ACI on Demand,” an online version in which ACI hosts and operates the server for the client.
