Visa to buy fraud detection firm BioCatch for $2.4 billion

Visa has signed a definitive agreement to acquire BioCatch, an Israeli fraud intelligence company, for $2.4 billion in cash, the card network said on August 3. Visa is buying the business from funds advised by the private equity firm Permira and other shareholders, according to a company statement.

BioCatch analyses thousands of application, behavioural, device and network signals, among them keystrokes, touch gestures and how a person handles a device, using artificial intelligence and machine learning to separate legitimate users from fraudsters in real time. The company protects 1.8 billion devices and 760 million users, and serves more than 350 banking clients in 21 countries, including more than 100 of the world’s largest banks, Visa said.

“Account takeovers and scams cost the global economy over $1 trillion annually,” said Andrew Torre, president of value-added services at Visa, in the statement. He said the technology would help clients stop fraud before it reaches the point of payment.

The business will join Visa’s value-added services division and continue serving banks and other financial institutions. Founded in 2011 and based in Tel Aviv, BioCatch will keep operating as it does now, chief executive Gadi Mazor said in a message to staff reported by Calcalist.

The transaction is subject to regulatory approvals and customary closing conditions and is expected to complete by the end of Visa’s fiscal second quarter of 2027. It is the company’s largest security acquisition since it bought Featurespace in December 2024, according to Fortune.

Visa has invested more than $13 billion in technology and infrastructure over the past five years to counter payment fraud, according to Finextra. The company reported $13.9 billion in combined cash, cash equivalents and investment securities as of June 30, and its network spans about 14,500 financial institutions across more than 200 countries and territories.

The purchase follows Visa’s fiscal third-quarter results reported on July 28, in which value-added services revenue grew 34 percent in constant dollars to $3.8 billion, outpacing the rest of the business.