Thales, a global provider of advanced technology solutions, with more than 80,000 employees worldwide, and an established business unit for Digital Identity and Security, has announced the acquisition of OneWelcome, one of the leading European providers of CIAM (Consumer IAM).

While the acquisition will provide OneWelcome with a go-to-market capability on a global scale, there are interesting options beyond that. OneWelcome delivers CIAM and B2B management capabilities, consent management, authentication support, and policy-based access control. Thales, on the other hand, has a variety of cybersecurity and identity technologies in its portfolio, including biometrics and identity verification, digital wallets, and data security and data protection.

The combination of authentication of customers with strong authentication technologies such as biometrics and identity verification, and consent management with data protection and data security, brings the potential for leveraging the strengths of both vendors for delivering innovations to the market.

As for every acquisition, there is the question about the potential impact on existing customers. Due to the fact that the portfolios of both companies are complementary, but with almost no overlaps, the risk for existing customers of products becoming end-of-life as a consequence of this acquisition, appears to be negligible.  On the other hand, there is a strong potential for customers to benefit from improvements provided by joining the forces of these two vendors. This will depend on Thales effectively leveraging the strong potential that this acquisition holds.

For more information on OneWelcome’s CIAM and consent management capabilities, have a look at this Executive View report on OneWelcome Customer Identity and B2B identity and this Leadership Compass report on Privacy and Consent Management 2022.

Find out more about Thales’s cybersecurity and identity technologies in this Executive View report on the Thales SafeNet Trusted Access Platform and this Leadership Compass Report on Access Management 2022.