Nexi Taps IBM to Modernize Its Core Payment Infrastructure

Italian paytech firm Nexi has signed a five-year deal with tech giant IBM to modernise its core payment processing infrastructure.

Nexi will utilise the firm's IBM z16 and IBM Storage System offerings to provide "more secure, reliable and quantum-safe transaction processing for clients".

The IBM z16 system enables high-volume transaction processing while also allowing users to analyse real-time transactions at scale to better monitor for fraud. It also offers quantum-safe cryptographic technology, which, IBM says, can help address "future quantum-computing related threats including harvest now, decrypt later attacks which can lead to extortion, loss of intellectual property and disclosure of other sensitive data".

Nexi hopes the tech will also help it meet its sustainability goals by reducing infrastructure energy consumption by 25%.

Giuseppe Dallona, Nexi Group's CIO, said: "The agreement with IBM is part of our infrastructure modernisation plan and allows us to improve operational efficiency and drive innovation while offering higher levels of resilience and security to respond even more effectively to the ever-increasing needs of customers."

The paytech company adds that over the five years stipulated in the agreement, IBM will work closely with Nexi "to provide the technologies and to add its expertise needed to support improved efficiency of the group's digital payments services and growth of its workloads".

In August last year, Nexi partnered with Microsoft to develop cloud and digital payments solutions for European software vendors, financial institutions, SMEs and other public-facing organisations. And in last month, the paytech firm teamed up with Telecom Italia's Olivetti​ to provide electronic payment solutions to businesses.