Moody's Buys Data Firms in the UK and Austria

Risk assessment data and advisory firm Moody's Corporation is buying two onboarding and customer data tech firms: UK-based PassFort Limited is already acquired, while Austrian firm 360kompany should join it in Q1 of next year.

PassFort is a UK SaaS-based workflow platform for identity verification, customer onboarding and risk analysis, pulling in data from more than two dozen third-party providers and automates the collection, verification and secure storage of customer and supplier due diligence documentation. The company was founded by Donald Gillies, and raised $16.2m in Series A funding as recently as September.

Vienna-based kompany provides a platform for audit-proof business verification and KYC, operating a network of primary source information on more than 115 million companies across 200 jurisdictions.

Moody's says the acquisitions will complement its technology, data and analytical capabilities, and enhance its customer solutions for KYC (Know Your Customer), anti-money laundering, compliance and counterparty risk. Both will be integrated into the KYC business within Moody's Analytics, adding to recent investments the Orbis company database and the GRID database of risk profiles. The group also bought a minority stake in MioTech, a provider of alternative data and insights for the environmental, social and governance (ESG) and KYC markets in Greater China, a year ago.

Keith Berry (pictured), General Manager of the KYC business unit, comments: 'Our customers rely on our data and analytical tools to make decisions about who they do business with. PassFort and kompany are innovators in the compliance and regulatory space, and their technologies will upgrade and accelerate our customers' onboarding and monitoring processes'.

The acquisition of company, subject to approval and conditions, will be funded with a combination of cash and shares, while the PassFort buy is cash only.

The division is online at http://kyc.moodys.io . Moody's, which employs more than 13,000 employees in more than 40 countries, can be found at www.moodys.com .