Podcast Summary: Bloomberg Businessweek

Episode: ACI Worldwide Raises Guidance, Commits to Digital Assets
Airdate: November 28, 2025
Hosts: Carol Massar and Tim Stenovec
Guests: Bobby Leebrock (CFO, ACI Worldwide), Nina Trentman (Senior Editor, Bloomberg News)

Episode Overview

This episode dives into the transformation of ACI Worldwide, a global leader in payment systems infrastructure, as it raises financial guidance and steps further into the digital assets landscape. Hosts Carol Massar and Tim Stenovec—joined by CFO Bobby Leebrock and Bloomberg’s Nina Trentman—explore payment trends, fraud challenges during the holiday peak, technological innovation, and the handling of emerging digital payment types like stablecoins.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. What Does ACI Worldwide Do?

• Peak season for payments: The episode opens as e-commerce hits its highest volume, with ACI moving billions of transactions worldwide.
• Infrastructure for payments:
  • ACI supports payment processing across all top 10 banks, 60/100 of the biggest banks, and 3,000+ U.S. customers.
  • Services entire sectors ranging from U.S. tax payments to global e-commerce merchants (80,000 clients globally).
• Mission-critical technology:
  • "We are the infrastructure that does that across all the banks... [providing] reliability, the fraud detection that you need." (Bobby Leebrock, 02:39)
• Financials: ~$5B market cap, ~$2B revenue, ~$500M EBITDA.
• Rapid transformation underway:
  • Recent arrival of new CEO Tom Warsop.
  • Company has doubled growth: from 5% to nearly 10% YoY.
  • Launch of the cloud-native ACI Kinetic payments platform.

2. Holiday Fraud and the Rise of "Friendly Fraud"

• Spike in fraudulent activity: Friendly fraud predicted to increase 25% during Thanksgiving to Cyber Monday (01:23, 11:05).
• Nature of friendly fraud:
  • "Things like wardrobe and buying something, wearing it for a long time, returning it, or you know, stolen goods that you try to return to the provider... they’re getting more and more sophisticated." (Bobby Leebrock, 11:06)
• Average friendly fraud return value: Jumped from $150 last year to $200 in 2025.
• Combating fraud with AI:
  • "We can get up to 98% prevention within that space..." (Bobby Leebrock, 11:25)
  • Real-world ROI for merchants and banks leveraging ACI’s AI-driven fraud detection.

3. Digital Payment Trends & Economic Insights

• Global perspective:
  • ACI operates in 90+ countries; 75% of bank business is outside the U.S. (05:24)
  • Focus on serving undercredited/underbanked populations, especially in Asia and Latin America.
• Shift to digital:
  • "We think the shift more and more towards digital payments is continuing to happen. We see that through our platform... we're growing 12% [YTD]." (Bobby Leebrock, 05:52)
• Buy Now, Pay Later:
  • ACI’s payment processing is "agnostic" about methods, supporting growth in "Buy Now, Pay Later" and alternative payment types.
  • "That is a good reason why to use a digital electronic payment versus, let’s say, cash..." (Bobby Leebrock, 06:46)
  • Businesses are increasingly outsourcing bill-pay tech for more flexibility and options for end users.

4. Stablecoins & the Future of Digital Assets

• Adoption and complexity:
  • The hosts revisit a recent interview with CEO Tom Warsop, emphasizing that the "death of cash is greatly exaggerated." (07:57)
  • Stablecoins seen as emerging rails—faster, cheaper, and more transparent for cross-border but introduce technical challenges.
  • "As stablecoin sees more adoption... [it] adds a ton of complexity for our customers to add this as an additional payment type." (Bobby Leebrock, 08:13)
  • ACI’s cloud Kinetic platform is designed to handle this variety and complexity.
• Stablecoin use cases:
  • Integration with BitPay, enabling stablecoin payments across bill pay and merchant solutions (09:30).
  • For now, most "stablecoin" volume is within the crypto ecosystem (moving value between volatile and stable assets); traditional payments still dominate ACI's transaction volume.

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

On ACI’s Transformation

• "We're a 50-year-old company that's rapidly transforming. About two years ago we had a new CEO come in, Tom Warsop, and he's really jolted the company, increased our growth about 2x."
  — Bobby Leebrock (04:13)

On Holiday Season Fraud

• "Friendly fraud... is things like wardrobe and buying something, wearing it for a long time, returning it or, you know, stolen goods that you try to return to the provider and they're getting more and more sophisticated."
  — Bobby Leebrock (11:06)

On Payment Innovation

• "It [stablecoin] adds a ton of complexity for our customers to add this as an additional payment type. It's one of the core reasons... for our new platform ACI Kinetic... It doesn’t bias one payment type, one rail. It can lean across all these payments hubs."
  — Bobby Leebrock (08:14)

Hosts’ Reactions

• "Maybe we should all take an ethics lesson. I don't know, I hadn't heard it."
  — Host reacting to "friendly fraud" (12:09)
• "I hadn't heard friendly fraud before."
  — Carol Massar (12:16)

Timestamps for Key Segments

• Introducing ACI Worldwide; company mission: 02:25 – 05:01
• Peak season and global transaction volumes: 02:32 – 04:30
• Financial performance, transformation, and innovation: 04:30 – 05:01
• Global digital payments and underbanked markets: 05:24 – 06:35
• Buy Now, Pay Later, and bill pay insights: 06:35 – 07:32
• Stablecoins, digital assets, and ACI’s Kinetic platform: 07:32 – 10:43
• Understanding and combating friendly fraud: 10:43 – 12:09

Tone & Language

The conversation is informative, pragmatic, and insightful, reflecting the careful optimism and customer-centric focus typical among fintech executives and business journalists. The guests provide real-world examples and statistics, and the hosts maintain an accessible, slightly curious tone—often pausing to clarify terms ("friendly fraud") and respond to emerging trends.

Conclusion

This episode shines a light on how payment infrastructure companies like ACI Worldwide are not just keeping up with, but actively shaping, the rapidly evolving world of digital commerce. Amid a peak season fraught with fraud risks, ACI is expanding its anti-fraud technology and embracing the complex world of stablecoins and digital assets—always with an eye on scalability, security, and global inclusion.

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