The applications are broader, so the name needed to be shorter. The streamlining of Fiserv "ACCEL/Exchange" to simply "Accel" is the result of a repositioning of the debit payment network, and a reflection of its current "ability to accelerate funds transfers across retail, biller and social person-to-person payments," the company said in a news release.

Accel provides the infrastructure that allows FIs to give cardholders uninterrupted access to their demand deposit account funds at ATMs and the point of sale. Accel boasts 3,100 financial institutions, 340,000 ATMs, more than 3 million merchant locations and 55 million debit cardholders.

"Fiserv updated the network's name to reflect the 24/7, always connected world we're living in," said David Keenan, general manager of network solutions at Fiserv. "Accel helps consumers move money when and how they want. Our real-time payments platform, developed over the last 40 years, has expanded from ATM and retail payments to enabling social payments, as we demonstrated last year with the integration of Accel with our person-to-person payments service, Popmoney."

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