Visa to buy fraud-detection firm BioCatch for $2.4 billion

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.

Under the deal, Visa will get BioCatch’s behavioral biometrics platform, which analyzes data including keystroke timing, touch screen pressure and other signals to distinguish real users from scammers and bots. Visa said it is acquiring the firm from London-based private equity firm Permira and other investors.

The acquisition underscores how payments companies are racing to strengthen fraud defenses as generative AI makes attacks cheaper, faster and more convincing. Visa estimates that scams and account takeovers cost the global economy more than $1 trillion annually.

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.

The acquisition is expected to close by the end of Visa’s fiscal second quarter in 2027, subject to regulatory approvals. Other financial terms weren’t disclosed.

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.

“The reality is, as a society and industry, we are not winning this fight,” the firm said. “The value of fraud and scam losses and the number of fraud and scam attempts, mule accounts, and victims of these financial crimes all continue to grow (in some cases, exponentially) every year, all around the world.”