Financial market infrastructure – retail: ACI Worldwide

The establishment of Bre‑B, Colombia’s new nationwide real‑time payments system, represents one of the most significant modernisations of retail financial market infrastructure anywhere in the world. 

Launched by the Central Bank of Colombia and powered at its core by ACI Worldwide technology, the payments system brings fully interoperable, instant, 24/7 payments to consumers, merchants, government agencies, utilities and financial institutions across the country – reshaping how the Colombian economy moves money.

“Banco de la República selected ACI Worldwide to deliver the real-time technology foundation that powers the entire national scheme. The payments technology provides a digital central infrastructure, which includes an addressing directory, real-time clearing and centralised settlement engine, for an interoperable scheme that enables instant, secure, 24/7 instant payments for all participants,” says Craig Ramsey, global head of account-to-account payments at ACI Worldwide.

Since the go-live on October 6, 2025, Bre-B has achieved a scale rarely seen in global real-time payments rollouts: more than 500 million transactions processed, 101.7 million payment keys registered and adoption spanning the entire national financial system.

With a national population of 53 million, of which 41 million are adults, the adoption of the scheme has been high. Within five months of the launch, 33 million unique keys have been registered, representing participation from approximately 80% of the country’s adult population (individuals may register multiple keys). In that short time, the system has processed 80 trillion pesos ($21.5 billion), equivalent to nearly 5% of Colombia’s projected 2025 GDP.

“ACI’s technology ensures uninterrupted operations of the scheme at a national scale, supporting hundreds of millions of annual instant payments transactions,” says Ramsey.

Bre-B was established to modernise the country’s retail payments infrastructure, harmonise digital payment experiences nationwide, and drive usage of digital payments through interoperability and better user experiences. All Bre-B transactions now settle instantly through the central bank, ensuring liquidity, operational certainty and a reliable foundation for high-volume use cases.

Rather than replacing existing ecosystems, the Central Bank of Colombia enabled a second connectivity layer through certified ‘Bre-B nodes’ – such as transfiya, entrecuentas and others – that connect participants to the core scheme. This means Bre-B enables banks, fintechs and co-operatives to send and receive instant payments via a shared national system, with interoperability between existing closed-loop schemes.

“[ACI Worldwide’s] work, alongside that of the other technology providers involved, was decisive in enabling the interoperability framework and in bringing to life an infrastructure designed to facilitate electronic payments across the country,” says an official at the Central Bank of Colombia.

By respecting and harnessing previously developed rails, Bre-B reduced disruption, accelerated onboarding, and significantly lowered adoption barriers for financial institutions and users alike. This pragmatic, evolutionary approach helped transform interoperability from a regulatory requirement into a scalable adoption mechanism. 

Collaborative governance

The new architecture, however, required a flexible approach by ACI Worldwide staff to meet the Colombian central bank’s requirements. 

“This has been a challenging engagement with the vendor, as the architecture is not comparable to any other system in the world. As a result, both sides had to maintain an open mindset to address design challenges, deliver the implementation on time, and ensure a successful operation,” the Central Bank of Colombia official says.  

“A key factor was the vendor’s clear understanding of the project’s scope and its strategic importance for the country,” the official adds. 

The success of the launch positions Bre-B as a potential reference architecture for future initiatives that also include ISO 20022 adoption, strong alias governance, low latency, high performance processing and rapid adoption. It also positions Colombia to become a leader in the next generation of cross-border real-time retail payments, particularly across high-volume corridors such as the US to Latin America.

ACI Worldwide has not only been busy in Latin America. It has also worked closely with central banks and payment institutions around the world, including those in Hungary, Indonesia, Malaysia, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates to improve their payments systems.

An example that gained critical mass in 2025, was ACI Worldwide partnering with Kuwaiti payments network KNet to design and operate the central payments infrastructure for WAMD, the country’s nationwide, interoperable real-time account-to-account (A2A) payment scheme. WAMD enables consumers to send and receive money instantly, using only a mobile phone number, via any bank’s mobile app or online banking service.

WAMD used the same ACI Worldwide core technology that powers multiple national-scale payment schemes, globally. All Kuwaiti banks joined the scheme from launch, and the system has reached more than one million since its introduction in mid-2024.

In 2025, meanwhile, ACI Worldwide launched ACI Connetic, a cloud-native platform integrating A2A payments, card payments and AI-driven fraud prevention. It aims to help financial institutions to simplify modernisation, consolidate siloed systems and process all payment types through a single, scalable platform that can be adapted to future demands.

“ACI Connetic is not just a new product; it is a new standard for how banks must operate in the digital economy,” says Thomas Warsop, president and CEO of ACI Worldwide. The payments technology company has already integrated major UK, European Union and global schemes, including Swift cross-border, RTGS/Target2, Sepa instant RT1 and Tips into ACI Connetic, with more capabilities planned.

Overall, ACI Worldwide is striving to provide central banks, payment networks and financial institutions with a future-capable foundation for navigating rising payments complexity, regulatory change and increasing demand for real-time services.

The Central Banking Awards 2026 were written by Christopher Jeffery, Daniel Hinge, Daniel Blackburn, Joasia Popowicz, Levente Koroes, Thomas Chow, Jono Thomson, Riley Steward and Blake Evans-Pritchard.