Adeptra Acquisition Gives FICO Increased Capabilities

FICO, a provider of analytics and decision management technology, announces it has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Adeptra Ltd., a cloud-based customer engagement and risk intervention solutions provider.

Adeptra's SaaS platform enables financial services institutions to take advantage of the explosion in mobile communication in order to manage risk, fight fraud, and improve the customer experience, all in real time. By using Adeptra's technology combined with FICO's decision management applications, businesses can move from defining, changing, and testing decisions to executing and resolving customer interactions while improving customer outcomes.

FICO will acquire Adeptra for an all-cash purchase price of $115 million, subject to post-closing adjustments. The deal is anticipated to be completed in September 2012, upon satisfaction of customary closing conditions. Adeptra is currently owned by a consortium of investors led by ABS Ventures.

FICO has had a successful relationship with Adeptra since 2002, and has been an Adeptra reseller since 2007. Together, the two companies have helped global banks cut their fraud losses by integrating FICO Falcon Fraud Manager with Adeptra solutions.

“For many of our clients, fraud protection and even debt collection have become important drivers of customer satisfaction and loyalty,” says Will Lansing, FICO CEO. “By integrating Adeptra's leading customer engagement and risk intervention platform with FICO decision management applications, we're enabling our clients to interact with their customers in ways that strengthen customer loyalty while minimizing business risks. That way, our clients can grow in lock-step with the evolving mobile economy.”

Founded in 1996, Adeptra provides solutions that allow businesses to communicate with customers in real time, using voice, SMS, mobile applications, email and other channels. By contacting customers instantly using their preferred channel, a business can immediately resolve important matters such as identifying whether a credit transaction is fraudulent, confirming a payment plan with a customer, and fixing customer service issues.

Adeptra then feeds this information back to the business's host system in a closed-feedback loop that improves risk management and future communications success. The SaaS platform offers greater flexibility, faster implementation times and efficient design and deployment of multi-channel customer interactions, with Adeptra's high-performance and scalable software capable of handling thousands of such transactions per second.

“FICO is known worldwide for its superior decision management solutions that cross the customer lifecycle,” says Tony McGivern, CEO of Adeptra. “Combining the power of FICO and Adeptra is a fantastic move for our clients and for clients' customers. Together, we will develop the next generation of full-cycle decision management and risk intervention products along with a range of innovative new marketing and customer service solutions, all optimized for the mobile economy.”