August 16, 2011

ACI Worldwide integrates Ethoca Alerts into global e-commerce payments gateway

Agreement further strengthens fraud and chargeback prevention for card issuers and online merchants

NAPLES, FLA and TORONTO, ON -- ACI Worldwide, a leading global provider of real-time electronic payment and banking solutions, today announced an integration agreement with Ethoca, a leading provider of collaboration-based technology solutions for card issuers and online merchants. ACI will integrate Ethoca’s flagship service, Ethoca Alerts, into its UP eCommerce Payments solution, making it available to payment service providers (PSPs) worldwide, and by extension, to thousands of leading online merchants globally. The integration of Ethoca Alerts gives PSPs, acquirers, processors and their merchant customers a powerful way to bolster their fraud defenses with card issuer-confirmed fraud and customer dispute data, while ensuring continued revenue growth.

Ethoca Alerts is powered by the industry’s largest global card issuer and merchant collaboration network. It gives merchants an early warning on confirmed fraud and customer dispute transactions, allowing them to resolve cardholder complaints before they reach the costly chargeback stage. Merchants on the network receive alerts as soon as cardholders confirm fraud with their bank – not weeks later through the slow, costly chargeback process. This immediate notification provides the window of time merchants need to stop the fulfillment of goods and services, as well as eliminate the impending chargeback by issuing a refund to the cardholder.

Through Ethoca’s integration with the UP eCommerce Payments solution, PSPs, acquirers and processors can activate the Ethoca Alerts service immediately and enable their merchants to benefit from nearly instant chargeback avoidance on confirmed fraudulent transactions. The integration provides merchants with a completely ‘hands-free’ experience, including automated refunding to ensure fast and easy elimination of chargebacks. In addition, Ethoca Alerts complements ACI’s portfolio of integrated payment and fraud solutions, including ACI ReD Shield, enabling ACI customers to use them together as part of a finely-tuned fraud prevention strategy well-suited for today’s complex online payment environment.

“Our integration with the ACI UP eCommerce Payments solution makes Ethoca Alerts easily available to more than 130 payment service providers and thousands of their merchants,” said Keith Briscoe, chief marketing officer, Ethoca. “As we bring on board more payment providers and top tier merchants, the overall network effect increases. All participants – including Ethoca’s network of more than 545 card issuers – get more value by reducing fraud losses and eliminating more chargebacks.”

“We are excited to support integration with Ethoca to offer our clients even greater flexibility in determining the ideal fraud management solution,” said Wolfgang Berner, director, ACI Worldwide. “ACI’s global eCommerce payments network of more than 350 card acquirers and alternative payment methods is accessed through a single technical integration to ACI’s open API-based platform. The addition of Ethoca Alerts enables a further way to fine-tune payment and fraud management operations for any business case.”