Global payments firm ACI Worldwide has agreed to acquire UK based paytech Cranium Ventures, folding its card switching technology into ACI’s Connetic for Cards platform. The companies have not disclosed financial terms.
ACI Connetic launched in 2025 as a cloud based platform for account to account processing and fraud prevention. It expanded in March this year with a dedicated card processing module. Through this deal, ACI will absorb Cranium Ventures’ technology, intellectual property and commercial relationships into that card processing arm. This technology underpins Cranium’s flagship SYNAP solution, which handles microservices based card switching across cloud, on premises and hybrid environments.
Cranium Ventures was founded in 2018 and also operates in Singapore and Malaysia. Co-founder and CEO Tony Horrell has led the company since its start. Once the deal closes, expected in the third quarter of 2026 pending customary approvals, Horrell and co-founder and CTO Ashraf Dimitri will both join ACI. ACI has not specified which roles they will take on, though it has confirmed it will continue supporting Cranium’s existing SYNAP customers.
Thomas Warsop, president and CEO of ACI, said card processing remains one of the toughest modernization challenges in payments. “We have been working on it for years,” he said. “Financial institutions need more than a switch. They need intelligence embedded throughout the payment lifecycle, and that is what we built ACI Connetic to deliver. ACI Connetic for Cards is already in market, and Cranium Ventures moves that work forward faster.”
The acquisition follows ACI’s broader push to build out its technology roadmap. In January, the company named JP Krishnamoorthy as chief innovation and technology officer, tasked with driving growth across its payments orchestration services.
HeraldView: ACI’s move shows payments providers racing to own the full card lifecycle, not just processing. As banks demand smarter, embedded switching, expect more targeted acquisitions like this one over rapid in-house builds.