Fiserv (NASDAQ: FISV), a leading global provider of financial services technology solutions, announced today that its debit payments network, formerly known as ACCEL/Exchange, has a new name - Accel.
The new name reflects the network's ability to accelerate funds transfers across retail, biller and social person-to-person payments, and positions the network within the Fiserv portfolio of payments capabilities to create the world's leading real-time network.
Accel is one of the fastest-growing payments networks in the industry, supplying the infrastructure for financial institutions to give cardholders around-the-clock access to their demand deposit account funds at ATMs and the point of sale. As a leading payments network, Accel boasts 55 million debit cardholders, 3,100 financial institutions, 340,000 ATMs and more than 3 million merchant locations. In 2009, Accel became the first payments network to enable secure online debit transactions using a PIN. Additionally, Accel provides value-added network services including surcharge-free options, deposit-accepting program, the Card Alert Service risk management, and marketing strategies and materials to assist members in promoting debit card payments over cash and check payments.
"Fiserv updated the network's name to reflect the 24x7-always-connected world we're living in," said David Keenan, general manager, Network Solutions, Fiserv. "Accel helps consumers move money when and how they want. Our real-time payments platform, developed over the last 40 years, has expanded from ATM and retail payments to enabling social payments, as we demonstrated last year with the integration of Accel with our person-to-person payments service, Popmoney(R)."
In addition to accelerated payment speed and real-time money movement, Accel members benefit from working with a single integration partner to help them build relationships, grow volumes and deliver faster, more secure transactions across a variety of channels.
Fiserv is leading the industry in bringing real-time payment capabilities to payers and recipients alike, with initiatives such as Popmoney, the social person-to-person payment service from Fiserv that allows consumers to conveniently send and receive money. Other initiatives, such as SpotPay(TM), a mobile payments solution for small business customers that enables merchants to accept card and check payments anywhere, anytime, will be real-time enabled later this year. Fiserv will continue to strategically invest in enabling real-time payments capabilities across its portfolio of solutions, helping financial institutions deliver services and experiences that meet the high expectations of consumers.