Fime, which tests and certifies payment, digital identity and smart mobility products, has acquired Red Alert Labs, a French accredited cybersecurity evaluation and certification lab for connected products, FinTech Global reported on September 15, 2026.
The terms were not disclosed. Red Alert Labs will keep its accreditations and technical independence and will now trade as Red Alert Labs, cybersecurity by Fime.
Roland Atoui, Red Alert Labs' founder and managing director, continues to lead the business.
What Red Alert Labs built
Red Alert Labs evaluates and certifies the security of internet-connected products and runs an independent security lab. It also built CyberPass, a platform that automates compliance work. Manufacturers use CyberPass to assess how ready their products are for security certification and to keep improving that readiness over time, while certification schemes use it to manage and scale their assessment processes.
Atoui said the company was built on the idea that cybersecurity assurance has to become scalable and continuous rather than a one-off check. He said joining Fime would let Red Alert Labs combine its accredited evaluation work and CyberPass with Fime's global testing and certification operations.
Atoui said the combined business would help manufacturers keep checking how ready they are for compliance and help certification schemes industrialise their processes.
“Our ambition is to make Fime a global Digital Trust Provider. For more than three decades, we have helped build trust in payments, and we have extended that expertise into digital identity and smart mobility. Cybersecurity is the next natural step.”
Why Fime is buying
Fime has spent more than three decades building a business in payments testing and certification and has since moved into digital identity and smart mobility. The acquisition adds cybersecurity as a new line of business.
Chief executive Lionel Grosclaude said Fime wants to become a global digital trust provider and that cybersecurity was the natural next step. His argument is that payments, digital identities, connected devices and AI-enabled services are converging around the same requirements: security, interoperability, compliance and proof that technology keeps working as intended.
Grosclaude said customers increasingly need to prove not only that a product works and interoperates with others, but that it is secure, compliant and stays trustworthy for as long as it is in use. He said Red Alert Labs brings cybersecurity expertise together with a platform approach that will help Fime deliver that at scale.
Together the two companies plan to support customers across a product's life: advice and security by design, implementation, testing, evaluation and certification, and continuous assurance after launch. Atoui said they would also extend cybersecurity work into digital identity, digital wallets and emerging AI agent systems.
The regulatory backdrop
The timing is tied to new EU rules. Reporting obligations under the Cyber Resilience Act applied from September 11, 2026, and the act's main obligations follow on December 11, 2027.
Under the act, manufacturers of products with digital elements will have to show that they meet cybersecurity requirements on an ongoing basis, not only when a product first goes on sale. That is the gap Fime sees Red Alert Labs' continuous-assurance approach filling: a lab that can certify a product, plus software that keeps tracking whether it still complies.
Fime frames the deal as a response to digital ecosystems becoming so interconnected that trust can no longer be handled in isolated pockets. In its view, a payment terminal, a digital identity and a connected device increasingly need to pass the same kinds of checks.
What changes for customers
Existing Red Alert Labs customers keep the same accredited lab and the same leadership, now with access to Fime's international reach and testing infrastructure. Fime's payments and identity customers gain a cybersecurity evaluation partner within the same group, alongside the testing and certification services they already use.
Neither company disclosed Red Alert Labs' revenue, headcount or funding history. The deal was listed by Tech.eu among the week's European exits and acquisitions, alongside Motorola Solutions' purchase of Portuguese AI startup DeepNeuronic and Aeon's acquisition of Aware Health.
