Mastercard Acquires Brighterion To Further Expand AI Capabilities

Mastercard announced it has entered into an agreement to acquire Brighterion, Inc., a leading software company that specializes in artificial intelligence (AI).

According to a press release announcing the news, this deal will enable Mastercard to expand its capabilities by adding Brighterion’s unique Smart Agent technology to Mastercard’s advanced suite of security products already using artificial intelligence.

“To fully realize the promise of our increasingly digital lives, we need to design our payment systems with the future in mind and that’s what we’re doing,” said Ajay Bhalla, president of enterprise risk and security for Mastercard. “Our unprecedented use of artificial intelligence on our network is already proving successful. With the acquisition of Brighterion, we will further extend our capabilities to support the consumer experience.”

Artificial intelligence (AI) enhances the customer experience — as well as security — by offering greater insights from every transaction to assist in making even more accurate fraud decisions. Brighterion’s technologies have been successfully applied in cyber and homeland security, anti-money laundering (AML), real-time cross-channel fraud prevention, onboarding and risk monitoring, behavioral device ID, data breach detection, marketing, trading, healthcare and biotech.

“It all comes down to intelligent decisioning at the time of the transaction,” said Dr. Akli Adjaoute, founder and CEO of Brighterion. “We’ve worked with Mastercard over the years to identify patterns and trends to power their most advanced customers’ authorization and decisioning activities. We look forward to building on that foundation and providing an industry-leading, holistic and seamless security experience.”

The closing of the transaction is subject to customary closing conditions, including the expiration or early termination of the applicable waiting periods under the Hart-Scott-Rodino Act. Terms of the agreement were not disclosed.