Overcoming payment capacity, legacy and
competitive challenges

The worldwide payments market has undergone major changes amid the COVID-19 pandemic. Ethiopian consumers began shifting more toward secure payments, including contactless options, moving their country closer to becoming a cashless economy. Needing to modernize to support the emerging trend, the Bank of Abyssinia utilized the ACI Issuing solution to carry out a program of payments system modernization that is scalable and flexible from end to end.

The challenge

• The bank needed to modernize due to emerging payment trends and changing consumer preferences
• It had difficulty adapting to the volume and composition of Ethiopian payments
• The bank had to quickly execute changes with legacy technology, while addressing nimble competitors

The solution

• ACI Issuing provided the bank with modern, scalable and secure payments, meeting every system requirement
• The solution provided card management support, including debit, credit and prepaid cards
• ACI Issuing on premise deployment provided the bank with the control they sought

The results

The payments modernization project was a complete success and took only nine months from start to go-live, exceeding the expectations of the Bank of Abyssinia. The ACI Issuing solution provided the bank with a stable and scalable platform that reduces risk in the payments system, helping to ensure innovation and revenue growth well into the future. The results reflect the outstanding work carried out, which included agile teams from both companies executing their duties with transparency and alignment, and was key for final success. Because of the pandemic, this project was carried out remotely, so constant communication and alignment were of utmost importance. The teams created innovative ways to carry out requirements gathering, installations and training without being on-site at the bank.