Visa will expand its fraud fighting and financial crime intelligence capabilities with a $2.40-billion all-cash purchase of privately held, Israel-based BioCatch. The deal is expected to close in the first half of 2027.

Global investment firm Permira holds a majority stake in BioCatch. When it became majority owner of BioCatch in 2024, the company had a $1.30-billion market valuation. Bain Capital is also an investor. American Express Ventures was an early investor.

BioCatch’s intelligence engine, which is available on a software-as-a-service basis, collects behavioral biometric signals as well as cognitive signals associated with digital banking sessions, payments, accounts, devices, IP and geolocation and nonmonetary activity.

Those signals are then provided to clients to be combined with nondigital information from other fraud fighting technologies.

Financial institutions with 760 million customers connected to 1.80 billion devices use BioCatch to protect against application fraud, account takeovers, authorized push payment (APP) fraud, including those that involve mule accounts, social engineering scams and money laundering.

BioCatch AI and machine learning models create risk scores delivered via APIs. Those scores help distinguish an honest individual from a criminal when both input valid information associated with use cases that can include a new bank account application as well as hard-to-spot APP fraud or social engineering scams tied to digital banking sessions. The company also creates network consortiums of its clients, enabling them to leverage collective data and make better risk decisions. BioCatch uses pseudonymization technology to protect identities.

More than 19 billion sessions are monitored annually for 350 financial institution customers worldwide, including 34 of the 100 largest. BioCatch holds more than 90 patents in the US, UK, EU and other jurisdictions related to recognizing patterns in human behavior that can impact behavioral biometrics, computer network security, payment systems, digital identity verification and fraud detection.

Customers of BioCatch include the Nuance unit of Microsoft, Early Warning Services, Experian, Wells Fargo, Banorte, Banco Galicia and 9 of the 10 largest banks in Australia.

For Visa, BioCatch is part of a strategy to catch fraud prior to a payment attempt. Over the last five years, Visa has invested over $13 billion in technology and infrastructure to maintain the safety and integrity of its payment ecosystem. Those investments include the 2024 acquisition of UK-based card fraud detection firm Featurespace for $904 million.

BioCatch is Visa’s third deal in 2026. Earlier this year, it purchased card issuer processor Prisma Medios de Pago and ATM/bill payment processor Newpay. Both are based in Argentina. Terms were not disclosed.

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