This morning, ACI announced that it is going to acquire Online Resources. It's a bold move on the part of ACI, especially after their recent acquisition of S1. ACI is clearly working on growing market share, and adding to it's vast treasure trove of fintech assets. My initial feelings regarding the acquisition are mixed. What works:
- ACI picks up a bill payment solution, a critical component of a digital banking arsenal. Fiserv (Checkfree) and FIS are the dominant players here and it will be interesting to see how they will use their newly acquired bill pay asset. In other words, can they tightly couple bill pay to their existing online and mobile banking solutions and attempt to oust the dominant competitors?
- ACI now has consumer online assets that complement their S1 acquisition. Examples include PFM (MoneyHQ), and online account opening.
- ORCC works primarily with smaller institutions. This speaks well to ACI's direction over the last little while, particularly after acquiring S1 and their community bank and credit union clients.
- Business online banking / cash management overload. Prior to acquiring S1, the only solution ACI had was Enterprise Banker. With the S1 acquisition they added Business Online Banking for Community Banks and Credit Unions, Business Online Banking for Regional, National, and International Banks, and WebFederal for Credit Unions. With the ORCC acquisition they add Business Banking and Quotien Small Business Banking. If my math is correct that adds up to6 online banking solutions for businesses. That's no small portfolio to manage! ACI has already made some decisions regarding the S1 portfolio. For the midsize to large bank market, ACI has announced that both Business Online Banking and Enterprise Banker are strategic components of its long-term vision. They have positioned S1’s larger bank solution (now known as ACI Universal Online Banker) as the global product of choice and the ACI solution (Enterprise Banker) as a US-centric hosted solution.
- Consumer online banking overload. ACI did not have it's own dedicated consumer solution, but with the S1 acquisition they added Online Banking for Community Banks and Credit Unions, Online Banking for Regional, National, and International Banks, and WebFederal for Credit Unions. Now they are adding ORCC's Advantage (ASP) and Architect solutions (on premise or hosted). A total of 5 consumer online banking solutions.