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Visa has agreed to acquire Israeli behavioural biometrics specialist BioCatch in a $2.4 billion all-cash transaction, marking one of the payments giant’s largest investments in fraud prevention as financial institutions confront an escalating wave of AI-enabled cybercrime.
Visa to acquire BioCatch
The acquisition reflects a broader shift in the payments industry, where fraud prevention is moving beyond transaction monitoring towards identifying criminal activity before a payment is ever initiated. By combining BioCatch’s behavioural intelligence with Visa’s global payments network, the company aims to strengthen security across the entire digital banking journey.
The transaction is expected to complete by the end of Visa’s fiscal second quarter of 2027, subject to customary regulatory approvals.
Behavioural Biometrics Become a Strategic Asset
Founded in Israel, BioCatch has become a leading provider of behavioural biometrics, using artificial intelligence and machine learning to distinguish legitimate customers from fraudsters in real time.
Rather than relying solely on passwords or device credentials, the platform continuously analyses thousands of behavioural signals, including keystroke dynamics, touchscreen gestures, mouse movements, device handling and network characteristics. These data points enable financial institutions to detect account takeover attempts, scams, money mule activity and application fraud before financial losses occur.
Today, BioCatch protects more than 760 million users across 1.8 billion devices, analysing approximately 19 billion digital banking sessions every month for over 350 financial institutions operating in 21 countries, including more than 100 of the world’s largest banks.
Visa Expands Its Security Ecosystem
The acquisition aligns with Visa’s long-term strategy of investing heavily in cybersecurity and fraud prevention. Over the past five years, the company has invested more than $13 billion in technology and infrastructure designed to strengthen payment security and reduce fraud across its global network.
Andrew Torre, President of Value-Added Services at Visa, noted that account takeover fraud and scams now cost the global economy more than $1 trillion annually, with artificial intelligence allowing criminals to launch increasingly sophisticated attacks at unprecedented scale.
Visa believes BioCatch’s behavioural intelligence will complement its growing portfolio of fraud prevention technologies, which already includes AI-powered cyber defence tools, identity verification capabilities and payment authentication solutions.
Protecting the Entire Digital Banking Journey
For BioCatch, the transaction provides an opportunity to extend its technology across Visa’s global banking ecosystem while accelerating the adoption of behavioural intelligence as a core component of digital payments security.
Chief Executive Gadi Mazor said behavioural analysis has consistently demonstrated its ability to distinguish genuine customers from fraudsters, adding that recent advances in real-time intelligence sharing between financial institutions have significantly strengthened fraud detection capabilities.
As artificial intelligence continues to transform both legitimate banking services and criminal techniques, the acquisition highlights an important evolution in fraud prevention strategy. Rather than focusing exclusively on securing the payment itself, banks are increasingly seeking to identify malicious behaviour from the moment a customer begins interacting with digital banking platforms.
For Visa, BioCatch represents more than another technology acquisition. It reinforces the company’s ambition to create a security ecosystem where cyber intelligence, behavioural analytics, identity verification and payments infrastructure work together to stop fraud before it reaches the point of transaction.
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