NICE Actimize Buys Guardian Analytics

Financial fraud prevention software and cloud company NICE Actimize has unveiled a deal to acquire Guardian Analytics.

With the deal, New Jersey-based NICE Actimize looks to beef up its offerings to financial services institutions. Guardian is known in the banking sector for its artificial intelligence (AI)-powered, cloud-based financial crime detection and deterrence platform, NICE Actimize and Guardian said in a press statement.

NICE Actimize, a unit of NICE Ltd., said the acquisition of Guardian Analytics should both strengthen and widen its appeal to financial institutions (FIs), particularly in the anti-money laundering (AML) arena.

Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

“Today, NICE Actimize is taking a significant step forward in advancing the future of managing financial crime risk,” said Craig Costigan, NICE Actimize CEO, in a press statement. “With criminals seeking to exploit the current environment, we need to make sure financial institutions and consumers are protected in a way that’s cost-effective and intuitive.”

Before the acquisition, Guardian had been pushing hard to keep its services and products top of mind with executives in the financial services industry.

In a piece published in April in the American Banking Association (ABA) Journal, Guardian noted that banks are scrambling to keep up with the demand for online banking products and services from millennials, even as they battle to ward off hackers who see opportunities in the rapid expansion.

The piece by Guardian cited behavioral analytics, which the company specializes in as the key to cracking down on financial fraud.

Instead of specifically searching for financial fraud, behavioral analysis “builds individual behavioral models of each account holder, and then compares all new activity to this established norm, and calculates a risk score that reflects the degree to which new activity is similar to, or different from, historical patterns,” Guardian Analytics noted in the ABA piece.

Shares of parent company NICE Ltd. edged down Monday (June 8), slipping .77 percent to $183.30 a share.

“We are excited to join forces with NICE Actimize,” said Eric Tran-Le, Guardian Analytics co-CEO, in a press statement. “Financial services organizations need to stay ahead of today’s threats, and our unique offerings enable firms to rely on a single provider to accelerate their financial crime risk management strategies.”