Visa to buy cybersecurity firm BioCatch for $2.4 billion amid surge in AI-powered scams
Visa on Monday said it is acquiring fraud detection startup BioCatch for $2.4 billion in cash, expanding the payment giant's push into cybersecurity as...
Key points
- Visa on Monday said it is acquiring fraud detection startup BioCatch for $2.4 billion in cash, expanding the payment giant's push into cybersecurity as banks confront a surge in artificial intelligence-powered scams and account takeovers.
- Visa said it is acquiring the firm from London-based private equity firm Permira and other investors.
- It is also the latest move by Visa to expand its value-added services business, which sells fraud prevention, cybersecurity and analytics software to financial institutions and has become one of the company's fastest-growing divisions.
- "BioCatch will help our clients stop fraud before it reaches the point of payment," Andrew Torre, Visa's president of value-added services, said in a statement.
What happened
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Visa on Monday said it is acquiring fraud detection startup BioCatch for $2.4 billion in cash, expanding the payment giant's push into cybersecurity as banks confront a surge in artificial intelligence-powered scams and account takeovers. Visa said it is acquiring the firm from London-based private equity firm Permira and other investors. It is also the latest move by Visa to expand its value-added services business, which sells fraud prevention, cybersecurity and analytics software to financial institutions and has become one of the company's fastest-growing divisions. "BioCatch will help our clients stop fraud before it reaches the point of payment," Andrew Torre, Visa's president of value-added services, said in a statement. While the Israeli startup said it currently protects 760 million users across roughly 350 banks, Visa's global rails connect nearly 14,500 financial institutions, processing over 329 billion transactions annually worth more than $17 trillion. In a blog post accompanying the announcement, BioCatch said joining Visa will allow it to scale its impact amid a rising tide of global fraud.