Payfone, a New York-based award-winning digital identity authentication leader, is known for its powerful and proprietary algorithms that enable the Trust Score — which allows businesses to approve transactions instantly while thwarting fraud at the same time. And recently, Payfone announced it closed a $24 million led by information solutions giant TransUnion. Existing investors Synchrony (premier consumer financial services company), MassMutual Ventures (the venture fund of mutual life insurance company Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance Company) and Wellington Management LLP also participated in this round. In conjunction with this funding round, TransUnion SVP of Global Fraud and Identity Solutions Geoff Miller is joining Payfone’s board of directors.
The investment from TransUnion was strategic as the information solutions company is going to integrate its existing IDVision with iovation suite of products into Payfone’s Trust Platform and Trust Score.
Essentially, this enables businesses to overcome the historical tradeoff between security, convenience, and privacy. Plus Payfone also announced that TransUnion is becoming Payfone’s primary partner for regulated identity verification information.
“The fear of identity fraud and cyberattacks holds the digital economy back from its full potential,” said Rodger Desai, CEO of Payfone. “For example, in lending, it’s striking that today five times more loan applications are approved in-person than on-line, despite credit worthiness. With our partnership with TransUnion, we can now leverage TransUnion’s footprint of more than 30 countries to help expand our Trust Score™ around the globe, allowing billions of additional consumers to safely access digital services.”
It is estimated that 98% of online transactions are legitimate, but the digital economy is suffering from a Trust Gap where the fear of cyberattacks, synthetic fraud, and stolen identities are leading to falsely declined transactions and increasing fraud losses. To help solve this problem, Payfone also recently announced the next phase of its Zero-Knowledge architecture — which enables identity verification partners like mobile network operators to verify consumer and business identities without consumer information being passed, stored, or aggregated.
Last year, Payfone authenticated 20 billion transactions for Fortune 500 companies with this privacy-first approach. And this number is expected to double this year.
“We’ve had a relationship with Payfone since 2017, recognizing the incredible value they bring to fraud prevention. Within this new strategic partnership, we anticipate supporting Payfone’s expansion to new markets and looking at other uses of their products throughout our organization, added Miller. “We are both committed to protecting consumers, focusing on data privacy and building trust with our customers, and the combination of our solutions will create a better, more seamless experience for everyone.”
