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The France-based contractor is looking to expand its cyber security offering through the acquisition of a Dutch company.
Thales has signed an agreement to acquire Netherlands-based company OneWelcome — a customer identity and access management services provider.
The deal, reportedly worth €100 million (AU$149 million), aims to leverage OneWelcome’s digital identity lifecycle management capabilities to bolster Thales’ existing identity services offering.
OneWelcome’s services suite includes cloud-based customer identity and access management for highly regulated industries, designed to enable customers and business partners to securely connect to online services.
The Dutch company’s clients include Malakoff Humanis, PostNL and the European Central Bank.
In acquiring the company, Thales plans to meet global demand for enhanced identity and data privacy management.
The acquisition comes amid Gartner research, which anticipates a 72 per cent increase in the employment of a CIAM initiative by 2032, up from 40 per cent in 2020.
“Customer Identity – or CIAM – is a solution tailored for any organisation with a digital presence that need to securely manage external identities and provide intuitive access to their online services,” Danny de Vreeze, CEO of OneWelcome said.
“We have a state-of-the-art service that is used by European customers to connect and protect millions of users.
“Our highly motivated team is thrilled to expand our product leadership into new markets using the global reach of Thales.”
Philippe Vallée, executive vice-president, digital identity and security at Thales, said the acquisition of OneWelcome would further drive the company’s expansion into the cyber security space.
“OneWelcome’s talents and expertise in customer identity and access management complements and strengthens our authentication and data privacy portfolio as well as our plan to provide a trusted and frictionless digital experience,” Vallée said.
“Nowadays, as we see a rapid increase in amount of data, cloud migrations, and new compliance mandates, it’s essential to offer secure, adaptive and convenient solutions that help our customers in both private and public sector to classify, protect, and control the access to their sensitive data regardless of where it resides.”
[Related: Thales Australia, EXPAL Systems SA partner for sovereign munitions capability]
