Visa pays $2.4B for behavioral-intelligence firm BioCatch, joining Mastercard in a race to embed AI fraud detection at the point of payment. The acquisition targets the $1 trillion annual fraud cost.
Visa agreed to buy BioCatch, an Israeli fraud-intelligence company, for $2.4 billion in cash, the companies said Monday. The acquisition folds behavioral biometrics into Visa's suite of security services.
BioCatch uses machine learning to analyze keystroke patterns and mouse movements – more than 1,000 signals per session – to flag fraud before a transaction completes. The company says it protects 1.8 billion devices and 760 million users, serving over 350 banks across 21 countries, including more than 100 of the world's largest.
“Account takeovers and scams cost the global economy over $1 trillion annually and AI is enabling these attacks at unprecedented scale,” Andrew Torre, president of value-added services at Visa, said in a statement. “BioCatch will help our clients stop fraud before it reaches the point of payment.”
The deal comes as payment networks race to embed real-time fraud detection. Mastercard last month finalized its purchase of BVNK, a crypto infrastructure platform, to secure digital asset transactions. Mastercard faces the same pressure to upgrade fraud systems.
That pressure is visible in issuer surveys. A PYMNTS study conducted with Visa DPS found that 42% of bank and non-bank issuers rank fraud and disputes as their biggest or second-biggest platform-related operating cost after employees. The share of issuers citing insufficient fraud systems as a pain point rose to 21% from 14% a year earlier, the study found. Nearly 60% of issuers across customer-lifetime-value tiers are deploying or enhancing AI-powered card fraud detection.
The study also found that 68% of high-CLTV issuers said enhanced security and fraud prevention are required for agentic commerce, compared with 47% of medium-CLTV issuers and 43% of low-CLTV issuers. High-CLTV issuers are roughly 1.5 times as likely as others to make the connection between security and commerce conducted by AI agents, the study said.
“Real-time insights into customer intent continue to grow increasingly essential for institutions to establish trust within digital banking sessions,” Gadi Mazor, BioCatch's chief executive, said in the release. Mazor said the company's real-time intelligence-sharing networks between customers amplify the power of behavioral intelligence.
The transaction is subject to regulatory approvals and is expected to close in the coming months.
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