Signicat bolsters financial crime capabilities with Sphonic acquisition

Digital identity firm Signicat is acquiring all the shares of UK anti-fraud company Sphonic for an undisclosed fee.

Signicat has been growing rapidly in recent years, with the company aiming to become a single provider for the entire digital identity and anti-financial crime lifecycle across Europe. Sphonic, meanwhile, claims to be a pioneer in automating compliance decision processes.

According to Signicat, the combination with Sphonic will make Signicat better able to protect banks and other customers against fraud, financial crime and money laundering and will create one of the ‘strongest identity ecosystems globally’.

The acquisition will also enable Signicat to extend its leading existing identity platform with Sphonic’s KYC, KYB and AML solutions.

Following the acquisition, Sphonic will continue as a separate business entity named Sphonic, a Signicat company – for the short-term, before it is fully integrated into Signicat in the long-term. The Sphonic management team will form part of Signicat’s wider senior management team and Andy Lee – founder and general manager of Sphonic – will become Signicat’s UK Country Manager.

This is Signicat’s sixth acquisition since 2019, following earlier purchases of Electronic IDentificationEncap Security and Connectis among others.

Signicat CEO Asger Hattel said, “With digital fraud continuing to rise globally, it has become critical to know that your customers are who they claim to be. With Sphonic’s leading team of professionals and their data orchestration and decisioning platform, we will be able to offer a more extensive range of onboarding services with highly flexible risk and compliance solutions – all of which can keep international customers safe from fraud.

Sphonic general manager and founder Andy Lee added, “We are excited to become part of the Signicat family. For the past 10 years we have built industry-leading solutions that solve some of the most complex onboarding and compliance challenges in heavily regulated industries for global digital payments, crypto, gaming and lending brands requiring rapid onboarding for their high-volume client base.

“With Signicat there was a great complementary fit. Now we are ready to accelerate our ambitions in new markets and verticals and creating a compelling joint global solution.”

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