Omnisient Group CEO and co-founder Jon Jacobson (left) and TransUnion Africa CEO, Lee Naik, (right) sign strategic partnership agreement.

TransUnion Announces Minority Investment and Strategic Partnership with Omnisient to Accelerate Alternative Data Adoption

Johannesburg, 26 June 2025 – TransUnion today announced a minority investment and broader strategic partnership with Omnisient, a South Africa-founded FinTech operating internationally that offers a privacy-preserving data collaboration and advanced analytics platform. The Omnisient platform empowers businesses to safely access high-value consumer data ecosystems and rapidly integrate alternative data sets to drive intelligent decision-making. As part of the investment, a TransUnion representative will join Omnisient’s board of directors.

“The Omnisient platform allows multiple clients to use built-in advanced analytical tools to simultaneously evaluate the utility of diverse data sets, identifying those that deliver measurable value. Through this collaboration, TransUnion expects to gain access to a broader range of alternative data sources and privacy preservation capabilities. By accelerating the integration of high-impact data into our ecosystem, we intend to enhance existing solutions and develop new, market-relevant products that better meet the evolving needs of our customers,” said Lee Naik, Regional President/CEO of TransUnion Africa.

“Traditional data models often fail to reflect the lived realities of African consumers, leaving millions without access to credit and the opportunities it enables,” said Naik. “Financial inclusion is central to unlocking economic growth across the continent. That’s why we’re committed to leading with bold, African-born solutions designed to see the unseen and serve the credit invisible by integrating alternative data sets alongside traditional credit data in ways that reflect uniquely African contexts and realities. By incorporating non-traditional indicators of financial behaviour, this approach broadens access to credit and helps us reach more underserved communities. We believe accelerating the adoption of alternative data is critical to closing the credit gap at scale, enabling faster, fairer and more inclusive access to financial services for millions across the continent.”

“Our privacy-preserving data collaboration platform brings financial services and consumer brands together, allowing them to discover, validate and commercialise new alternative sources of consumer behavioural and transactional data without having to exchange sensitive personal information,” said Jon Jacobson, co-founder and group CEO of Omnisient. “This data allows financial institutions to make better risk decisions with more confidence and security, unlocking the potential to grow financial inclusion for hundreds of millions of people around the world.”

This collaboration marks a natural progression in TransUnion’s strategy to expand financial inclusion across Africa. By leveraging privacy-enabled alternative data sets through Omnisient’s platform, TransUnion intends to strengthen its ability to help address the challenge of bringing an estimated 500 million* financially excluded Africans into the formal financial ecosystem. By responsibly harnessing alternative data at scale, TransUnion sees the opportunity to bring millions of new-to-credit and credit-underserved consumers across Africa into the financial mainstream. This enables individuals to begin building a credit profile, many for the first time, laying the foundation for long-term economic empowerment. It’s a powerful demonstration of TransUnion’s commitment to using Information for Good® to drive measurable impact at scale: expanding access to credit, unlocking economic potential and reshaping the future of finance across Africa.

Global demand is rising for alternative data solutions that protect privacy, build trust and unlock value. Omnisient’s platform meets this need with technology that enables secure, privacy-preserving data collaboration. Instead of transferring raw data, Omnisient uses tokenised keys to represent personal information in the data set, ensuring privacy is maintained throughout the process. As a leading provider in Africa of secure, many-to-many data connectivity between banks, financial institutions and third-party sources, Omnisient is driving innovation in data collaboration.

*Source: The Global Findex Database 2021

Further information:

About TransUnion (NYSE: TRU)

TransUnion is a global information and insights company with over 13,000 associates operating in more than 30 countries, including South Africa. We make trust possible by ensuring each person is reliably represented in the marketplace. We do this by providing an actionable view of consumers, stewarded with care. TransUnion is the only company in Africa’s IT industry that manages multiple complex databases containing insurance, cellular, consumer, commercial and auto data assets.

Through our acquisitions and technology investments we have developed innovative solutions that extend beyond our strong foundation in core credit into areas such as marketing, fraud, risk, and advanced analytics. As a result, consumers and businesses can transact with confidence and achieve great things. We call this Information for Good®, and it leads to economic opportunity, great experiences, and personal empowerment for millions of people around the world.

For more information visit www.transunion.co.za

About Omnisient

Data collaboration enables creates significant opportunities for businesses and communities. One of those is increasing financial inclusion, with the widespread benefits of that.

Financial Services providers can derive substantial value from high quality consumer data but are constrained by privacy regulations, the risk of data breaches and IP leakage, the depreciating value of data, and the time required to obtain access to new data.

Omnisient is an award winning privacy preserving data collaboration platform that is enabling financial services businesses to access high value consumer data in a regulatory compliant manner, using advanced cryptography and AI.

Omnisient is a member of the World Economic Forum’s Technology Pioneer Community, a TechCrunch Startup Battlefield 200 participant, a member of the United Nations Privacy Enhancing Technologies committee, and a Fast Company “Next Big Things in Tech” startup.

Founded in South Africa in 2019, Omnisient is now headquartered in the United Kingdom and is operating in the Middle East, Brazil, Asia Pacific and the United States.

Press Kit: For more information and media photos, please visit: https://Omnisient.com/presskit/