Equifax Acquires Fraud Prevention Company Kount For $640 Million

Equifax said Friday that it has signed a deal to acquire Kount, providers of digital identity and fraud prevention software, for $640 million. Equifax said it plans to use Kount's technology to bolster its footprint in digital identity and fraud prevention market.

Kount's software relies on artificial intelligence to link trust and fraud data signals from billions of digital interactions, devices, and annual transactions. The signals are collected and combined with Kount's AI-driven predictive insights to help businesses prevent digital fraud and protect against account takeovers in real time.

Applied to business transactions, Equifax posits that Kount's technology can help facilitate faster and more accurate identity trust decisions, including payments, account creations and login, while also reducing fraud, chargebacks, false positives, and manual reviews.

"The acquisition of Kount will expand Equifax's differentiated data assets to bring global businesses the information and solutions they need to establish identity trust online," said Mark Begor, CEO of Equifax. "Equifax is taking advantage of our strong 2020 outperformance and cash generation to make this strategic acquisition. Our data and technology cloud investments allow us to quickly and aggressively integrate new data and analytics assets like Kount into our global capabilities and bring new market leading products and solutions to our customers."

The full suite of Kount products will be integrated into the Equifax Luminate fraud platform, which aims to help manage fraud decisions across the consumer account lifecycle.

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