Cognia, the leading global provider of cloud PCI payment solutions for telephone-based transactions, today announces its latest investment from Swisscom Ventures, the corporate venture arm of Switzerland's largest telecommunications provider.
Already a global leader, the investment means Cognia can now accelerate its growth plans and specifically its expansion into North America and Asian Pacific markets. It will also allow significant development of its UK sales and marketing arm.
According to software analytics firm Fico, card fraud in Asia Pacific is costing banks $400m (£241m) a year and is rising by 20%-25% a year. Data from The Nilson Report found in the US the cost of payment card fraud grew by 29% at the end of 2014 and according to the Aite Group fraud losses in the US market are set to climb steeply over the next 3 years. With the US adoption of Europay, Mastercard and Visa (EMV) standards for card payments, companies will require secure payment solutions, providing more opportunities for technology providers.
Cognia's new breed of cloud PCI compliance solutions are transforming the way in which contact centres protect their customers from the threat of payment card fraud. The solution protects card-holder data and prevents it from ever having to enter into the contact-centre environment, removing the substantial cost and complexity involved in securing working environments and systems against sensitive card data theft.
Pär Lange, Investment Director, of Swisscom Ventures, commented; "Swisscom Ventures is delighted to join the Cognia team. As an active investor in innovative technologies this will directly benefit our Swisscom communications service provider business. Cognia's PCI compliance payment processing and mobile in-network recording solutions are among the best in the market. Cognia's cloud compliance platform is leading in both its applications and infrastructure technology, solving key business problems for enterprises".
Curtis Nash, CEO of Cognia, said; "We are proud to be the preferred partner of choice for many global businesses and are seeing a surge in demand particularly from the retail, travel and outsourcing sectors. Compliance and information security is paramount for today's businesses. We are delighted to have Swisscom as an investor which will allow us to significantly grow our business".