TransUnion’s deal to buy the digital identity firm Neustar for $3.1 billion would be the credit monitoring agency's largest acquisition to date, underscoring the necessity of risk management for digital banking and e-ecommerce.
It follows other acquisitions that served to modernize the Chicago company's fraud-fighting technology.
Reston, Virginia-based Neustar’s OneID platform uses AI-powered data analytics to link identity fragments and attributes for consumers, their devices and locations in real time. This capability complements TransUnion’s existing fraud-mitigation solutions, TransUnion CEO Christopher Cartwright told analysts at a Monday conference call discussing the Neustar deal.
“A key part of our investment thesis for both TransUnion and in adding Neustar is to address the broad opportunity that we see for ID resolution to solve critical customer and consumer challenges as we move to a primarily digital commerce economy,” Cartwright told analysts.
Along with tools to battle fraud in financial services and retail channels, Neustar offers digital marketing and communications services that TransUnion expects to enhance its overall operations.
Neustar has expertise in phone verification, which is becoming increasingly important in vetting consumers’ identities in banking and retail settings, said Julie Conroy, head of risk insights and advisory at Aite-Novarica Group.
“TransUnion hasn’t played heavily in the contact center arena, so this launches them into a new fraud mitigation channel and helps round out their offerings on digital and branch channels,” she said.
TransUnion in 2013 acquired the assets of TLO, a Boca Raton, Florida-based firm with identity verification tools to manage fraud risks. In 2018, TransUnion bought Iovation, a Portland, Oregon-based device-intelligence firm monitoring fraud on 5 billion devices across 50 countries. The prices of those deals were not disclosed.
Financial terms of the deal to buy Neustar, which is expected to close at the end of this year, were not disclosed.
