Payfone Raises $24M

Payfone, an award-winning digital identity authentication leader, today announced the closing of a $24 million funding round led by TransUnion (NYSE: TRU), a global leader in information solutions, with participation from existing investors Synchrony (NYSE: SYF), a premier consumer financial services company; MassMutual Ventures, the venture fund of leading mutual life insurance company Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance Company (MassMutual); and Wellington Management LLP.

Powerful, proprietary algorithms enable Payfone's Trust Score™ to close the Trust Gap, allowing businesses to approve more transactions instantly, while thwarting fraud.
Powerful, proprietary algorithms enable Payfone's Trust Score to close the Trust Gap, allowing businesses to approve more transactions instantly, while thwarting fraud.
TransUnion's investment in Payfone underscores a new strategic partnership that will leverage the two companies' complementary missions and capabilities to accelerate the global digital economy.

TransUnion will enhance its existing IDVision with iovation suite of products by integrating Payfone's Trust Platform™ and Trust Score, enabling businesses to overcome the historical tradeoff between security, convenience, and privacy. Payfone also announced that TransUnion will become Payfone's primary partner for regulated identity verification information.

Despite the fact that it is estimated that 98% of online transactions are legitimate, the digital economy suffers from a 'Trust Gap' in which the fear of cyberattacks, synthetic fraud, and stolen identities leads to falsely declined transactions and ever-mounting fraud losses. Powerful, proprietary algorithms enable Payfone's Trust Score™ to close the Trust Gap, allowing businesses to approve more transactions instantly, while thwarting fraud.

"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."

"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, said Geoff Miller, Senior Vice President of Global Fraud and Identity Solutions, TransUnion. "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."

In March, Payfone announced the next phase of their Zero-Knowledge architecture, which enables identity verification partners, such as mobile network operators, to verify consumer and business identities without consumer information being passed, stored, or aggregated. In 2018, the company authenticated 20 billion transactions for Fortune 500 companies using this privacy-first approach, and it expects to double that number in 2019. Click here to learn more about Payfone's privacy-first Bill of Trust.

As part of the funding round, Miller will join Payfone's Board of Directors.

About Payfone

Payfone's award-winning Trust Platform and Trust Score bring trust to the digital economy by enabling businesses to instantly verify customers while thwarting fraud and cyberattacks in real-time; all within a privacy-first, zero-knowledge framework. Payfone serves 6 of the top 10 US financial institutions, and leading healthcare, insurance, technology and retail companies. Learn more at payfone.com and linkedin.com/company/payfone.

About TransUnion (NYSE: TRU)

Information is a powerful thing. At TransUnion, we realize that. We are dedicated to finding innovative ways information can be used to help individuals make better and smarter decisions. We help uncover unique stories, trends and insights behind each data point, using historical information as well as alternative data sources. This allows a variety of markets and businesses to better manage risk and consumers to better manage their credit, personal information and identity. Today, TransUnion has a global presence in more than 30 countries and a leading presence in several international markets across North America, Africa, Europe, Latin America and Asia. Through the power of information, TransUnion is working to build stronger economies and families and safer communities worldwide.