In mid-September data analytics provider FICO announced they would acquire Adeptra Ltd., a privately held company based out of the UK offering cloud-based customer engagement and risk intervention solutions, for $115 million in cash.
Adeptra, founded in 1996, provides a Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) platform for communicating with customers in real-time via voice, SMS, email, a mobile application or other means. This is positioned as both customer engagement software as well as a risk management solution as communications can be delivered to a consumer through their preferred channel to confirm a recent purchase or transaction. The SaaS platform then communicates the response back to the business or financial institution in a closed-feedback loop to confirm or deny the customer made the transaction.
FICO has been a major player in the data analytics and risk space for many years offering data analytics and decision engines for large business and enterprises. FICO has had a relationship with Adeptra for ten years and has been reselling their solutions since 2007. FICO’s CEO, Will Lansing, said the acquisition “will now give companies the ability to assess, decide, act on and resolve customer issues, all within a single platform.”
Adeptra has had success over the years as it serves more than half of the world’s top 50 banks in addition to clients in the telecom and other industries. Generally, these services receiving confirmation from a consumer that they initiated a transaction are utilized by financial institutions, such as credit issuers to ensure their cardholder made a purchase. It will be interesting to see how FICO combines Adeptra with the services they offer merchant clients, and if these risk intervention services will be widely used by eCommerce merchants and other online businesses as well.
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