ACI Worldwide’s solution provides increased efficiency and lower risk along with helping to meet legal requirements

– IBS Intelligence

OTP Group is one of the leading financial services providers in the Central and Eastern European region, and a market leader for providing credit in the retail category in Hungary, Montenegro, and Bulgaria. It provides a range of cutting-edge financial services, as well as solutions to a variety of other unique financial needs through its network of local   group subsidiaries, including the distribution of investment funds, house and other specialty savings, and vehicle finance.

The payments hub implemented for OTP Bank supports real-time payments and calls upon a myriad of services — from simple account balance inquiries to fraud checks, payments authorization and settlement.

To facilitate the transformation, ACI worked alongside OTP Bank to fully capitalize on these flexible and open payment services.

The Challenge

Before the start of this project, OTP did not have core systems that were capable of implementing payment methods within the required time frame, and the related back-end processing that supported instant payments. It was also challenged by the complexity of domestic schemes and regulatory requirements and needed to streamline operations and infrastructure to improve efficiency and expand into new markets. It also had to future-proof the platform to meet the needs of an evolving payments market. For this, it enlisted ACI Worldwide, a leading US-based payment systems firm, to implement a payments framework.

The Solution

ACI’s Enterprise Payments Platform offering ensured connectivity, processing, origination, clearing and fraud detection across multiple real-time schemes connected to other internal OTP systems. The bank implemented Payment Integration/Hub as a core for real-time payments.

The key components that were developed or enhanced by both parties as a part of the implementation were:

ACI Payment Hub

• GIRO AFIR gateway
• Merkantil Bank integration

ACI Payment Integration

• Payment orchestration

ACI PRM

• OTP Kamarf (exchange rates)
• OTP Proxy ID Database
• OTP Pricing Engine
• OTP Account List
• OTP Real-Time Balance
• OTP MW (electronic channels, e.g., smart bank, netbank, electra)
• OTP GWB (core clearing and settlement system)

The solution was a highly available dual-site solution, meeting the typical NFRs for a 24/7 real-time payments solution and was designed to support OTP’s requirement of 250 transactions per second (TPS).

All these components together provided real-time payment functionality to OTP’s customers.

The Results

With a concurrent clearing and settlement process, OTP Bank was able to meet the legal requirements for real-time payments, while also gaining better insights about its customers, and could thus offer more personalized services and faster decision-making. Key benefits also included a combination of origination, processing, clearing and settlement, fraud detection, and connectivity capabilities.

Key Facts

Client: OTP Bank
Industry: Financial Institutions
Company Size: 10,500 employees
Location: Hungary and OTP Group in other 10 Central and Eastern European countries, including Bulgaria, Crotia and Montenegro
Solution: Low Value Real-Time Payments