Visa announced it will acquire behavioral biometrics firm BioCatch for $2.4 billion in cash, expanding its cybersecurity push as banks battle a wave of AI-powered fraud. BioCatch's technology analyzes keystroke timing, touch pressure and other behavioral signals to flag scammers and bots before a transaction completes, protecting 760 million users and 1.8 billion devices across more than 350 banks in 21 countries.
Visa is buying the Israeli startup from private equity firm Permira and other investors; founder and CEO Gadi Mazor will stay on after the deal closes, expected by the end of Visa's fiscal second quarter in 2027. The purchase adds to more than $13 billion Visa has spent on technology acquisitions over the past five years.
"Account takeovers and scams cost the global economy over $1 trillion annually, and AI is enabling these attacks at unprecedented scale," said Andrew Torre, Visa's president of value-added services. The deal underscores how payment companies are racing to shore up fraud defenses as generative AI makes scams cheaper and more convincing to pull off.