Visa is paying $2.4B in cash for BioCatch, a startup whose software watches how people behave on their devices to flag fraud before a payment happens. The deal, announced Monday, pulls BioCatch out of private equity firm Permira’s portfolio and into Visa’s Value-Added Services group.
BioCatch studies subtle signals in how users type, swipe and navigate, building behavioral profiles that expose account takeovers and automated scams. That puts detection earlier than transaction-level screening, at the moment of interaction rather than at the point of payment. Visa points to a global loss figure of more than $1T a year from account takeovers and scams, with AI making attacks cheaper to run and harder to spot.
Andrew Torre, president of Visa’s value-added services, said the acquisition helps clients stop fraud “before it reaches the point of payment” and builds trust into every transaction.
BioCatch founder and CEO Gadi Mazor says the company will keep its leadership and structure intact as part of Visa. Its behavioral intelligence already screens transactions at many of the world’s largest banks.
For Visa, the deal is the biggest security bet yet from a payment network racing to defend against AI-assisted fraud. Adding behavioral signals upstream gives it a view of customers that pure payment data cannot provide, and positions Visa to sell fraud prevention as a service to the banks that run on its rails.
