Strong customer gains, standout US growth helps Entersekt solidify market position

The Entersekt team continued to solidify new partnerships in all regions, improving its go-to-market scale and creating new market opportunities.

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Entersekt, a global leader in transaction authentication solutions for financial fraud prevention, today announced strong growth in both revenue and number of customers, fuelled by continued US expansion and strategic partnerships. Since the investment by Accel-KKR in fiscal 2022, Entersekt has seen its business outside of South Africa accelerate rapidly, with contracted annual recurring revenue increasing by 191% and nearly 220% growth in US-based customers in fiscal 2023 alone.

“Our solid growth in a difficult global business climate is a testament to Entersekt’s innovation and expertise in addressing emerging fraud threats,” said Schalk Nolte, Entersekt CEO. “Our reputation of delivering the highest level of security to financial institutions across all digital channels without compromising user experience is capturing the attention of decision-makers – many of whom now recognise the urgent need to adopt more robust authentication methods to replace the traditional approaches that are proving to be vulnerable to increasingly sophisticated fraud attempts.

“We are particularly pleased with our performance in the US, which is nearing hyper-growth. The region remains a key focus for the year ahead and we have identified key partners and talent who are well known in the industry to help us to accelerate the current trajectory. The market has shown itself eager to adopt our technology, which has a proven track record with financial institutions around the world,” Nolte explained.

“As fraud and financial crime continue to threaten financial institutions around the world, the opportunity for innovative technology firms to help mitigate these risks is greater than ever,” said Julie Conroy, Head of Risk Insights at Datos Insights. “Entersekt’s steady growth and expansion is a key indicator of the appetite for FIs of all sizes to seek solutions that can reduce fraud while ensuring an optimal user experience.”

Market-leading fraud prevention innovations

The Entersekt team continued to innovate well ahead of the industry curve, with three new patents granted in FY2023, adding to the more than 60 existing technology patents. These include Context Aware Authentication, which is the first cross-channel fraud prevention to consider the originating channel, the transaction context, the analysis and orchestration of both active and silent risk signals, the available authentication mechanisms, as well as the customer’s choice to determine the most appropriate authentication journey – all in real-time.

“Many banks continue to struggle with siloed authentication mechanisms, with different solutions for online banking, in-branch offerings, call centres, digital payments and open banking, with each using its own authentication technology. We're providing the ability to break down all those silos and have one common authentication platform across all the various channels. Not only does this provide a much better user and customer experience, but also helps orchestrate all that data to help banks make better decisions,” Nolte said.

New strategic channel and technology partnerships

The Entersekt team continued to solidify new partnerships in all regions, improving its go-to-market scale and creating new market opportunities. By supporting pre-integration, these partnerships enabled banks to quickly and easily deploy Entersekt’s state-of-the-art authentication technology. Most recently, Entersekt’s biometric authentication technology was integrated into Q2’s Digital Banking Platform, adding biometric authentication capabilities to the Q2 online and mobile banking applications.

Expanded senior management

To support the significant growth and opportunity in the US market, Entersekt made 10 new director, VP or C-level hires in the US in FY23. Its executive team and company headquarters are now based both in the US and South Africa, showcasing the importance of and commitment to regional representation.

Three new C-level appointments, all with decades of leadership experience, include Matt Loos as Chief Revenue Officer, Pradheep Sampath as Chief Product Officer, and Frank Moreno as Chief Marketing Officer.

• Loos joins Entersekt with over 20 years of leadership experience at companies like Fifth Third Bank, Cardinal Commerce and Mastercard.
• Sampath has led new product initiatives for over 20 years, scaling SaaS, mobile and API-based products for companies like ID.me and GXS.
• Moreno’s experience includes senior marketing leadership roles spanning over 20 years with tech companies such as Bottomline and Datawatch.

Looking ahead, Nolte said the industry must prepare for the continued challenges of account takeover fraud schemes and authorised push payment fraud, saying the rise of real-time payments, particularly through mobile apps, has introduced a need for faster and more effective fraud detection mechanisms.

“Our vision for the future is centred on becoming a leading force in the digital landscape, revolutionising the way people conduct secure transactions on digital platforms. With the backing of our US-based investors, key partners and a customer-centric approach, we are poised for exceptional success in the year ahead and beyond,” Nolte said.