Eckoh acquires Syntec to enhance its security solutions and accelerate cloud growth

Eckoh has completed its acquisition of Syntec, a UK-based company specializing in secure payment solutions for Contact Centers, for £31m ($41m).

The acquisition will bolster Eckoh’s Customer Engagement security solutions, adding complementary services and patents to their portfolio, and enhancing their position as the largest secure payments provider for contact center operations in the key US market.

Syntec has a ten-year history of providing secure payment solutions to an international client base with a highly skilled team based in the UK and US. Syntec will further expand Eckoh’s enterprise client base, increasing its market presence and share in its key markets.

Through its proven, successful, and profitable UK business, Syntec has helped clients to improve their regulatory compliance and security for card-not-present payments with their product CardEasy. They have a fast-growing US presence, with 70% of their new clients coming from the US market, and a Cloud-based offering that is assisting organizations in new markets across the globe.

Syntec’s technology is protected by an extensive patent portfolio in the UK, US, EU and Australia, and their long list of enterprise clients includes leading brands such as Wayfair, Miele, Locus, Staples, AIB, JetBlue and Hiscox.

The acquisition of Syntec is highly complementary to Eckoh’s strategy of having the market-leading position in Customer Engagement data and payment security in a global market.

Nik Philpot, CEO of Eckoh, commented: “For over a decade Eckoh has been helping organizations to combat the compliance and security challenges caused by the transmission of customer’s personal data and payment information over the phone and other engagement channels. With the increasing risks and consequences of cybercrime, protecting this data should be the top priority for information security and customer engagement professionals.

“With the acquisition of Syntec, we can leverage their technology, product and IP to further enhance our security solutions, scale our go-to-market efforts and expand our world-class team. This will create additional value for our shareholders by accelerating growth and strengthen the relationships with our valued clients by delivering even higher levels of customer service.

“We are delighted to welcome the Syntec team to Eckoh, and we’re extremely excited about the future growth prospects for the Group in our international target markets.”

Colin Westlake, CEO of Syntec, said: “We are joining Eckoh with common goals and values and a shared vision to deliver the safest payment experiences for our clients and their customers all around the world.

The security challenges for organizations are only growing and by bringing together two successful teams and businesses that are so complementary, it will create an even stronger combined Group that will enable us to offer our mutual clients a broader portfolio of market-leading engagement security solutions.

We look forward with excitement and optimism to the future prospects of combining our proven skills and technology to help combat whatever new security challenges may present themselves.”