ACI and Mastercard partner to provide Peruvian real-time payments

Written by Alex Hamilton
24th February 2021

Peruvian clearing house the Cámara de Compensación Electrónica (CCE) has selected an ACI Worldwide payments platform to facilitate the deployment of instant payments.

CCE is already live with a Vocalink real-time system

CCE is installing ACI’s Enterprise Payments Platform to enable its partner banks access to Mastercard’s Instant Payment Service.

Mastercard’s new service will enter industry testing in Peru later this year. The issuer is working in tandem with ACI Worldwide to provide greater instant payments deployment in the South American country.

CCE launched its own real-time payments scheme, Immediate Interbank Transfers (IIT), in 2016. Now it is working with Mastercard to “fully modernise” Peru’s digital payments infrastructure.

“The volume of immediate transfers that we process each month has more than quadrupled,” says CCE CEO Martín Santa María.

“In January 2020, we processed 580,000, a number that increased to more than 2.8 million per month by January 2021.

“Thanks to the Mastercard and ACI Worldwide partnership, we can exceed this growth, as both consumer and business demand for real-time payments rapidly increases across the country.”

Clearing at pace

Prior to the foundation of the CCE, Peru’s central bank managed the clearing of cheques, transfers, debits, and bills.

Exchange at the central bank was manual, and it says it hindered the timely settlement of cheques, meaning the country failed to meet international standards.

Since that time, the country has embarked on the implementation of Swift’s ISO 20022 payment standard, with the aim of achieving real-time processing.

CCE has already worked with Mastercard subsidiary Vocalink, going live in 2020 with a multi-currency real-time, batch and cheque payment solution.

“Modernising a country’s payments infrastructure is a major undertaking,” says Mastercard executive vice president for new payment platforms, Carlos Pontes.

“We are excited to continue our work with CCE together with ACI to develop a powerful and flexible real-time payments solution.

“This infrastructure will provide a platform for innovation to support the country’s economy, transforming the payments landscape for both financial institutions and their customers.”