Dive Brief:

• Card issuer American Express has signed an agreement to sell Accertify, which offers online fraud monitoring services to merchants, to tech investor Accel-KKR, Amex said in a Tuesday statement. 
• Amex purchased Accertify in 2010 for about $151 million, according to a 2011 filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. New York-based Amex will continue to operate its own, separate fraud prevention programs, according to Tuesday’s statement.
• Terms of the deal between Amex and Accel-KKR – which is expected to close in the second quarter – were not disclosed. An Amex spokesperson declined to comment beyond the company’s statement.

Dive Insight:

Itasca, Illinois-based Accertify, which has been a wholly owned subsidiary of the card issuer since 2010, provides e-commerce fraud prevention, chargeback management, account protection and payment gateway solutions, according to a Tuesday release on the sale. The business counts online retailers, major airlines and sports betting platforms among its clients, the release said.

Accel-KKR was created in 2000 as a joint venture to bring together the venture investor Accel and private-equity firm KKR to invest in growth businesses, buyouts and credit funds, but today it is operated independently from those namesake companies, a spokesperson for the firm said. The investment firm “will enable Accertify to accelerate its growth and product innovation in the global fraud prevention market as an independent entity,” according to the release. 

In the announcement, Accel-KKR highlighted growth expectations for the global fraud detection and prevention market, including that it’s projected to reach $182.7 billion by 2030, according to Fortune Business Insights. Accertify is well-positioned to capitalize on that growth, the PE firm said.

“Accel-KKR's knowledge and expertise in helping technology companies grow is an important consideration as Accertify embarks on the next step in its journey,” said Lisa Marchese, Amex’s head of corporate development, in the release. 

When Amex acquired the company in 2010, the card issuer said Accertify’s capabilities would be “incremental and complementary” to what Amex already offered merchants, and would broaden Amex’s fraud prevention services to merchants for transactions that take place on all networks, according to a 2010 release. 

With the sale, there’s no impact to Amex’s fraud prevention programs, a company spokesperson said. “American Express continues to leverage its own proprietary and sophisticated fraud programs,” the spokesperson said. Accertify “has always operated as a wholly owned subsidiary, offering supplementary fraud monitoring services to key merchants.”