‘Ton of jobs’ for fraud detection company Trustev’s Cork HQ

Fraud detection company Trustev’s $44m (€49m) takeover by Chicago-based TransUnion is set to deliver a major jobs boost to Cork, as the company looks to significantly ramp up its global expansion.

As part of the deal, Trustev has received assurances that its Cork headquarters will be developed into a European Centre of Excellence with the creation of a “ton of jobs” in the coming months.

Starting this week, some 90 additional staff will be added to Trustev’s Cork workforce over the next year as the backing of the New York Stock Exchange-listed TransUnion sets it up for a much quicker global expansion.

“I’m very excited,” said Trustev chief executive, Pat Phelan of the deal.

“I’m actually more excited by the acquisition in that TransUnion are a public company, they’re one of the world’s leaders in identity.

“They’re in over 30 countries and now we’re going to get to work with that and that’s really important for me, that we can grow and we have their full committal to make Cork a European Centre of Excellence and we’ll be expanding rapidly here.

“It allows us to grow much quicker. They’re a fantastic team but what I feel pretty proud about is that Cork is going to grow much quicker.

“We’ll be adding a ton of jobs this week, especially around data analytics and as we get access to all that information it makes our product better and it makes their product better,” Mr Phelan said.

Trustev specialises in “data fingerprinting” to verify online transactions and reduce fraud.

Its software uses a range of data points — including a buyer’s email, address and social media accounts — as well as analysing that person’s online behaviour to determine if they are who they claim to be and if they are trying to make a legitimate purchase.

One of Trustev’s main concerns — and reasons that it has grown so fast on both sides of the Atlantic — is that rather than just looking to prevent fraud, it tries to facilitate business in ways that other defence mechanisms such as Verified by Visa don’t.

“We get more people through the cart quicker and what’s been there up until now has been the blocking technologies where you’re throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

"We’re not doing that. Especially now with the integration of TransUnion we’re going to get even more through the cart.”

The deal sees TransUnion pay $21m upfront with an additional $23m on the table subject to Trustev achieving certain revenue and earnings goals.

Mr Phelan, a former butcher and chef who fell on rough times before turning his life around, and his co-founder Chris Kennedy founded Trustev in December 2012 having previously worked together on Cubic Telecom which the former sold in the same month.