Corporate History

Michael Collester founded Langhorne, Pennsylvania-based ACI Merchant Systems in 1989.  Mr. Collester's mission was to create a payment processing company focused on servicing the needs of regional and community banks.  He understood that these like-minded financial institutions focused on providing a quality service experience to their business banking customers and recognized that there was a lack of payment processing companies in the industry that shared this service philosophy.  Under Mr. Collester's leadership, ACI developed a proprietary bank reporting system and implemented a bank management and customer service model that enabled ACI to become recognized as the premier Agent/Referral Bank processing company in the Northeastern United States.

Today, ACI services hundreds of financial institutions and thousands of merchants across the country.  We have expanded our service model to include other strategic partnerships including merchant trade associations and value added resellers (VARs).  At ACI, we sell our industry leading products exclusively through our strategic partnerships.  These partnerships are not a channel strategy for ACI, it is our core business.  Consequently, ACI’s programs deliver the same high-level of customer service, customization and hands-on attention that our partners deliver to their business customers.  ACI provides state-of-the-art payment processing services to an entire array of merchant types and sizes, ranging from the smallest of home-based businesses to mid-sized and high-volume merchants, including municipalities, hospitals, utilities, and web-based retailers.  ACI understands that the primary goal of most of our partners as it pertains to a merchant services program is to expand on their primary lines of business.  As such, our organization is uniquely suited to meet those needs.