In February 2021, Equifax bought Kount, an Idaho-based company that uses AI for fraud prevention, for a whopping $640 million. (Equifax Kount Id $640 M Kount Equifax)
Key Takes:
- Equifax acquired Kount, an Idaho-based company, for $640 million in February 2021
- Kount uses AI for fraud prevention and cybersecurity
- Equifax acquired Kount to expand its business into cybersecurity
- Kount was analyzing over 17 billion devices globally, securing 32 billion transactions at the time of acquisition
- Equifax and Kount will combine their digital products to meet the demand for secure transactions
- Equifax intends to integrate Kount into its fraud detection product, Luminate
On January 8, 2021, Equifax made a public announcement that it will buy the AI-based fraud prevention company, Kount, for $640 million. According to Equifax, they acquired the digital identity and fraud prevention company to get familiar with this market and expand their business into cybersecurity.
As the number of devices connected to the internet is increasing exponentially, there is a huge concern about their security. If a device’s security is compromised – and the device is somehow connected to any fintech service – it is likely that the money is also at stake. To solve this problem, Kount used AI for fraud prevention for such devices and financial transactions made through them. [Equifax Kount Id 640M Kount Equifax]
Previously, Kount only used AI and analysis for fraud prevention and cybersecurity; now, the company is moving towards machine learning and predictive modeling to help companies prevent digital fraud across the horizon. At the time of acquisition, Idaho-based Kount was analyzing over 17 billion devices globally, securing just over 32 billion transactions. (Equifax Kount Id 640m Kount Equifax)
Equifax CEO Mark Begor on the Kount Acquisition
“As digital migration accelerates, managing authentication and online fraud while optimizing the consumer’s experience has become one of our customers’ top challenges…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 world is transitioning to digital, and in 2020 alone, credit card fraud was $6 billion, according to Mark Begor.
“On the eCommerce side, it’s a massive amount of fraud that happens from people taking over accounts and using someone else’s name to order something, and shipping it to their address,… so the data element creates more signals to manage a fraud through eCommerce, banking, insurance,” he added.
Kount x Equifax
Kount was founded in 2007 in hopes that Artificial Intelligence and Machine learning can solve the problem of online and identity theft. When the internet boomed, there were millions of frauds online, and nothing to stop them. Kount used analysis (and now AI and predictive ML models) to solve such problems.
Whether you’re a business or individual user, Kount uses the points of trustworthiness to determine if a transaction is made by you or not. This increases their AI model’s accuracy, meaning safer transactions for everyone.
Now that Kount is acquired by Equifax, Kount, and Equifax will combine their digital products in order to meet the exponential demand of transactions and their security. Additionally, Equifax intends to make Kount a part of their similar fraud detection product, Luminate. (Equifax Kount Id 640M Kount Equifax).
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