Visa (NYSE: V) announced it has completed its acquisition of Featurespace, a developer of real-time artificial intelligence (AI) payments protection tech that prevents and mitigates payments fraud and financial crime risks.
This will bolster Visa’s fraud protection capabilities and enhance security.
Visa will now reportedly add Featurespace’s capabilities into its fraud prevention and risk-scoring offerings.
By combining the companies’ products and tools, customers will have access to fraud protection services to help “keep their businesses safe and secure, including real-time detection of sophisticated fraud attacks, without adding friction to the user experience.”
Antony Cahill, President, Value-Added Services at Visa, said:
“We are thrilled to welcome Featurespace to Visa. Both our companies have been at the forefront of using AI to solve longstanding challenges and pain points in the payments industry. Together, we will offer a valuable combination of cutting-edge technology and industry expertise to help our clients continue to grow amidst an increasingly complex threat landscape.”
Over the coming months, Featurespace’s product portfolio will be incorporated into Visa’s existing offering, “expanding the available range of fraud prevention solutions and use cases.”
The Featurespace and Visa teams will bring their knowledge, modelling methodologies and tools to “further enhance the joint offering.”
Dave Excell, Founder of Featurespace, added:
“We developed our innovations to help crack even the most complex fraud cases. As part of Visa, we will be able to set a new standard in AI-powered fraud prevention and integrate our solutions into a series of products and services that will help make the world a safer place to transact.”
The Featurespace business will become “part of Visa’s Risk and Identity Solutions business unit.”
As covered, Visa is an enabler of digital payments, facilitating transactions between “consumers, merchants, financial institutions and government entities across more than 200 countries and territories.”
Their mission is to connect the world through the most innovative, convenient, reliable and secure payments network, “enabling individuals, businesses and economies to thrive.”
They believe that economies that include everyone everywhere, uplift everyone everywhere and see access “as foundational to the future of money movement.”
As noted in the update, Featurespace is a global, AI-native transaction monitoring company that helps to prevent fraud and financial crime. Using artificial intelligence, it analyses data in real time “to identify and stop existing and new forms of fraud and financial crime.”
Delivering on its mission to make the world a safer place to transact, Featurespace works with banks and financial institutions, protecting 500 million consumers globally and safely “processing over 100 billion payment events each year.”
As stated in a release, businesses are putting their “trust” in Featurespace’s tech including HSBC, NatWest, TSYS, Worldpay, Danske Bank, Akbank and Edenred.
Established back in 2008, and headquartered in Cambridge, UK, Featurespace says that it has “more than 400 team members, operating globally from six locations.”