Capital One has announced its acquisition of digital identity and fraud alert startup Confyrm.
Confyrm was founded in 2013 with its goal being “to restore trust in digital identities”. Its system provides early notifications on suspicious account activity and also features mechanisms for enhancing privacy and protecting identities.
CEO and founder Andrew Nash said: “We recognized that despite an increasing reliance on digital identities, consumer trust in those identities continued to erode. We wanted to make a real difference to reducing online fraud and to make the internet a safer place for everyone engaged in it, but critically to do this without abusing customer privacy and storing personal data.”
As part of the acquisition, Nash will be joining Capital One as Managing Vice President of Consumer Identity Services. Prior to founding Confyrm, he had served as Director of Identity Services at Google, Senior Director of Consumer Identity at PayPal, and Director of Technologies at RSA Security. He has also served on the boards of the Open ID Foundation, Open Identity eXchange, and the Information Card Foundation.
Despite an increasing reliance on digital identities, consumer trust in those identities continued to erode. We wanted to make a real difference to reducing online fraud and to make the internet a safer place for everyone engaged in it.
– Andrew Nash, CEO and founder, Confyrm
“Joining Capital One was a natural fit for the Confyrm team because of Capital One’s technology leadership, focus on improving banking for good, and our shared vision to improve the online transaction world for consumers,” said Nash.
The financial terms of the deal were not disclosed, and sources differ on how much funding Confyrm had previously raised, with reporting on a grant in 2014 varying between either $1.2 million or $2.4 million.
