Fraud prevention: Visa to acquire behavioral biometrics pioneer BioCatch for $2.4 billion in cash
Since its inception, BioCatch has developed innovative AI and machine learning-based solutions that analyze thousands of application, behavioral, device, and network signals — such as keystrokes, touch gestures, and device handling — to detect fraud and distinguish legitimate users from fraudsters in real time. BioCatch protects 1.8 billion devices and 760 million users around the world, serving more than 350 banking clients in 21 different countries, including more than 100 of the largest banks globally.
Visa announced it has signed a definitive agreement to acquire BioCatch, a leading provider of behavioral-first, multi-signal fraud intelligence, from funds advised by Permira and other shareholders for $2.4 billion in cash. „The acquisition of BioCatch complements Visa’s existing cyber, fraud, risk, and security solutions and is expected to help clients better protect themselves and their customers from the growing threat of account takeovers, scams, money mules, and application fraud.” – according to the press release.
“Account takeovers and scams cost the global economy over $1 trillion annually and AI is enabling these attacks at unprecedented scale,” said Andrew Torre, president of value-added services, Visa. “BioCatch will help our clients stop fraud before it reaches the point of payment. This acquisition is part of our strategy to help clients prevent cyber threats upstream while continuing to protect transactions as they occur, building trust into every transaction.”
AI, biometrics, authentication, identity, cyber defense, and fraud prevention are increasingly interconnected, and Visa is investing to stay ahead of evolving threats, both to protect its own network and to help clients do the same. That includes the Visa Vulnerability Agentic Harness, an open-source AI security tool designed to help clients identify and remediate vulnerabilities at scale.
The acquisition of BioCatch builds on Visa’s existing suite of products, providing AI-powered solutions to detect and prevent fraud and both cyber and financial crime, from account opening to transactions. Over the last five years, Visa has invested more than $13 billion in technology and infrastructure to safeguard the integrity of the payments ecosystem and accelerate the decline in fraud rates.
“Real-time insights into customer intent continue to grow increasingly essential for institutions to establish trust within digital banking sessions,” BioCatch CEO Gadi Mazor said. “For more than a decade, we’ve demonstrated behavior’s unique ability to distinguish the criminal from the legitimate. In the last couple of years, we’ve shown how real-time intelligence-sharing networks between our customers can amplify the power of our behavioral intelligence further still. Together with Visa, we’re even better positioned to advance our mission of making the world a safer place to transact and protect consumers from financial crime.”
Simon Taylor, the founder of Fintech Brainfood, commented: „... AI agents are increasingly starting transactions. How do you know a user made that transaction? Behavioral biometrics is great at separating bot behavior from human behavior. Every tap, swipe, or mouse movement is as idiosyncratic as you are. This data is going to become 100x more valuable in the next 5 years as proof of human becomes a critical trust signal. (…) as a data signal, it’s the best bang for buck across nearly every type of risk. Expect everyone else to reach the same conclusion.”
The transaction is subject to customary closing conditions, including receipt of applicable regulatory approvals. The transaction is expected to close by the end of Visa’s fiscal second quarter of 2027 and will provide significant benefits to its financial institution clients, consumers and the wider payments industry.
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BioCatch prevents fraud and financial crime by recognizing patterns in human behavior, continuously collecting more than 3,000 anonymized data points — keystroke and mouse activity, touch screen behavior, AI agent usage, jailbroken devices, and more — as people interact with their digital banking platforms. With these inputs, BioCatch’s AI and machine-learning models continuously assess both user intent and any signs of coercion or manipulation throughout every millisecond of every digital banking session, allowing banks to distinguish the criminal from the legitimate in real time. Insights drawn from across the network of BioCatch institutions further amplify the power and accuracy of that real-time risk-scoring. More than 350 financial institutions deploy BioCatch solutions, analyzing 19 billion user sessions per month and protecting more than 760 million users on more than 1.8 billion devices around the world from fraud and financial crime.
