News: Visa bets $2.4bn for BioCatch, InvestiFi raises $20m, and HSBC pulls back in Australia

**Benjamin Ensor** (0:05)
This is Fintech Insider News. This week, Visa agrees a $2.4 billion deal to acquire BioCatch, InvestiFi raises $20 million for an embedded investing platform, and HSBC is to pull out of the Australian retail banking market.
We're going to tackle all of these in today's news show.

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**Benjamin Ensor** (1:09)
Hello and welcome to episode 1088 of Fintech Insider News, brought to you by 11FS, the six-time Consultancy of the Year that works with financial providers big and small to build the next generation of financial services.
I'm Benjamin Ensor, Director of Research and Strategy at 11FS. Now, to help me unpack the biggest and most interesting stories from fintech and financial services from the past week, I'm joined by three outstanding guests. First of all, we have a very warm welcome to the podcast for James Holmes, Chief Product Officer at Seccl. James, it's great to have you on the show. Can you introduce yourself and tell our listeners a little bit about Seccl?

**James Holmes** (1:49)
Thanks, Benjamin. Yeah, it's great to be back.
As you said, I'm James. I'm the Chief Product Officer at Seccl. Seccl is the embedded custody and investment infrastructure platform sitting behind a number of the UK's leading investment platforms and wealth managers. We're part of the Octopus Group and we build infrastructure that enables other businesses to launch investment platforms either within their own customer journeys or using our UIs.
Probably our most famous customer is Monzo, who we onboarded last year, but we also support GoHenry, Chip, and Quiltern Invest.

**Benjamin Ensor** (2:20)
Fabulous. Fantastic. Welcome to the show. I'm also delighted to welcome to the show Benjamin David, Head of Intelligence at The Payments Association. Welcome to the show.
Could you also introduce yourself and The Payments Association to our listeners to the extent it isn't obvious from the title, The Payments Association.

**Benjamin David** (2:43)
Absolutely. Yes. I'm Head of Intelligence at The Payments Association. My role is really about understanding the forces shaping payments and financial services, whether that is fraud, regulation, emerging technology, or changing customer behavior.
I work for The Payments Association, which is the UK's major payments trade association. It has over 250 members and works with a broad community of banks, payment firms, fintechs, and technology providers.

**Benjamin Ensor** (3:21)
Amazing. Thank you. I'm also delighted to welcome back to the podcast, Dave Morris, who regular listeners will know, Chief Executive of FoundryOS.
Dave, would you mind just reminding our audience, who've not come across you before, who you are and what FoundryOS is, please? Yeah.

**Dave Morris** (3:42)
Great to be back, Benjamin. FoundryOS is an embedded banking and wealth platform that basically grew out of the 11FS world over several years.
We're now part of this holdings group and actively growing out that platform now across banking, wealth management with our first customers in different parts of the group and outwardly into the wider world beyond that. So exciting times, a lot of AI stuff going on with us at the moment.

**Benjamin Ensor** (4:18)
Fantastic. Welcome back. Okay, well, let's dive straight into the news. So our first story is that Visa has agreed a $2.4 billion deal to acquire BioCatch. So Visa is going to acquire the Israeli behavioral biometrics firm BioCatch for $2.5 billion in cash. BioCatch's AI-powered platform analyzes behavioral device and network signals in real time to help banks distinguish legitimate customers from fraudsters, protecting about 760 million users worldwide and serving more than 350 financial institutions. The acquisition follows Visa's broader investment in fraud prevention, with the company saying it has spent more than $13 billion on technology and infrastructure over the past five years. Separately, Bank of America has announced that it's acquiring UK cyber security specialist MDSec Consulting.
Benjamin, it's logical to come first to you on this. Obviously, we've seen a lot of shifts in fraud over the past year or two, particularly perhaps driven by AI and the way that AI has undermined some of the conventional ways that firms have developed. Visa is making a big bet here, $2.5 billion. That's a lot of money.
Why do you think they're doing that?
What's exciting about BioCatch? What's exciting about behavioral signals? What's behind this basically?

**Benjamin David** (5:58)