GBG: how phone books and address lookup became digital identity infrastructure
GBG began with information that looked mundane: phone numbers and postal addresses. In 1989, Phonelink launched as a phone-number directory business in Birkenhead while GB Mailing Systems started in Chester as an address look-up service.
Those two businesses eventually came together, and the data they handled became the foundation for something much larger. As commerce moved online, knowing where a customer lived was no longer enough. Businesses increasingly needed to know whether a person was real, whether an identity document was genuine and whether a transaction showed signs of fraud.
By 2026, GBG had become a global identity and location technology company serving more than 20,000 customers. Its history is the story of how address and directory data evolved into digital identity infrastructure.
Two data businesses started in the same year
Phonelink and GB Mailing Systems were both founded in 1989, but they approached customer information from different directions. One concentrated on phone-number directories, while the other helped businesses look up and manage address data.
Phonelink entered public markets early. It debuted on an unlisted London market in 1993 and moved to the London Stock Exchange’s Main Market in 1995.
The two businesses came together in 1998 when Phonelink acquired GB Mailing Systems. The combined group focused more heavily on customer information and database management, creating the base from which modern GBG developed.
At that stage, the company was still far from today’s identity-verification market. The important asset was structured information about people and places, together with the software needed to make that information useful.
Identity verification emerged from the same data problem
As banking, retail and other services moved online, businesses faced a new version of an old challenge. A postal address could help describe a customer, but digital transactions required stronger evidence that the person behind the screen was who they claimed to be.
GB Group moved further into identity verification during the 2000s. In 2006, it launched ID3 Check, its first international identity-verification product, initially covering 21 countries.
The product direction fitted naturally with the company’s earlier experience. Address and reference data could be combined with other sources to help businesses compare the information provided by a customer with trusted records.
ID3global followed in 2012, widening international coverage and turning identity verification into a more scalable web service.
Loqate made location intelligence a global platform
GBG’s location business took a major step in 2015 when the group completed its acquisition of Loqate, a Silicon Valley company specialising in global address and location data.
Loqate could capture, verify and geocode addresses across international markets. That mattered because address formats vary enormously between countries, and poor address data can create failed deliveries, broken onboarding processes and inaccurate customer records.
The acquisition gave GBG a much broader location-data platform and a stronger route into North America. It also reinforced the connection between location and identity: a reliable address can be one of several signals used to decide whether a customer record is trustworthy.
Location remained a major business in its own right. In the financial year ended March 2026, GBG’s Location segment generated £88.5 million in revenue, representing 31% of the group total.
A series of acquisitions built out digital identity
GBG spent the second half of the 2010s adding capabilities around the identity-verification process.
IDscan Biometrics joined the group in 2016, adding automated document verification and data capture. PCA Predict followed in 2017, strengthening address technology, while VIX Verify Group expanded the company’s identity and location presence in Australia and New Zealand in 2018.
The most important US expansion during this period came in 2019 with the acquisition of IDology. The Atlanta-based company brought identity verification and fraud-prevention technology together in one of the world’s largest digital markets.
These deals were not simply a collection of software brands. Together they gave GBG more ways to evaluate identity: reference data, documents, biometrics, addresses and fraud signals.
Acuant was GBG’s biggest identity bet
GBG accelerated the strategy in November 2021 when it acquired Acuant, a US identity-verification and compliance technology business.
The transaction valued Acuant at an enterprise value of $736 million and cost GBG roughly £555 million in total consideration. Funding included a large equity placing, debt and existing cash.
Acuant added document verification, biometrics, compliance technology and fraud-prevention capabilities. It also significantly increased GBG’s presence in North America.
The scale of the acquisition created integration work and later contributed to large accounting impairment charges, but strategically it moved GBG much further toward a global identity platform rather than a collection of regional verification products.
The US businesses were combined under IDology
By 2023, GBG had integrated its major US operations and made GBG IDology the go-to-market identity brand for the Americas.
That consolidation reflected a wider change inside the group. Years of acquisitions had created valuable technology, but they had also created overlapping brands, platforms and operating structures.
Management increasingly focused on simplification: fewer duplicated systems, clearer product architecture and a more unified way to sell identity services internationally.
That work set the stage for the next major product change.
GBG Go turned the portfolio into one identity platform
GBG launched GBG Go in April 2025 as an all-in-one identity platform. Instead of forcing customers to assemble separate verification products themselves, GBG Go provides access to identity, fraud and risk capabilities through a common platform.
The change is important because digital onboarding rarely depends on one check. A business may need to verify identity data, inspect a document, compare a face, screen sanctions lists and evaluate fraud risk within the same customer journey.
GBG Go is designed to orchestrate those steps rather than treat each one as a separate product. By 2026, GBG described the platform as offering more than 110 identity, fraud and risk capabilities across more than 195 countries.
The platform is therefore the clearest expression of the strategy GBG had been building through acquisitions for more than a decade.
The company returned to the Main Market in 2025
GBG’s public-market history also came full circle. After moving to AIM in 2010, the company returned to the London Stock Exchange’s Main Market on 30 October 2025.
From 22 December 2025, GBG became a constituent of the FTSE 250 index.
The move reflected the scale the company had reached. What began as two small customer-information businesses had grown into a multinational group with more than 1,000 employees and customers across financial services, gaming, retail, technology and other sectors.
FY2026 showed where the business now makes its money
GBG reported group revenue of £285 million for the financial year ended 31 March 2026, up 3.2% on a constant-currency basis. Adjusted operating profit reached £67.5 million, with an adjusted operating margin of 23.7%.
Identity was the largest segment, generating almost £175 million in revenue, or 61% of the group total. Location contributed £88.5 million, while Global Fraud Solutions generated £21.6 million.
The statutory result looked much weaker because GBG recorded a large non-cash impairment charge during the year. The group reported a statutory loss before tax of £74.5 million, illustrating why adjusted and statutory figures need to be read separately.
The business model itself remains largely recurring or usage-based. Subscription revenue reached £159.7 million in FY2026, while consumption-based revenue added another £110.6 million.
AI agents created a new identity problem in 2026
GBG’s newest products show how the identity problem is changing again. In 2026, the company introduced tools designed specifically for AI agents that need to verify addresses, identities and fraud signals while carrying out automated workflows.
Reach uses Loqate technology to verify addresses, email addresses and phone numbers for agentic systems, while GoPlane connects AI agents to identity and risk journeys running through GBG Go.
The logic is a direct extension of the company’s original business. Software acting on behalf of a user still needs trustworthy information about people and places. The difference is that the decision may now be made inside an automated agent workflow rather than by a human employee using a web form.
GBG spent decades turning reference data into trust infrastructure
The connection between a 1989 phone directory and a 2026 identity platform is easier to see than it first appears.
Phonelink and GB Mailing Systems started by organising information about how to contact people. Internet commerce then made that information useful for identity checks. Acquisitions added documents, biometrics, fraud detection and global location data, while GBG Go brought those capabilities into a common platform.
The company is now much larger and technically more complex, but the underlying product still depends on the same principle: businesses need reliable information before they can trust a customer, a transaction or an automated decision.
GBG’s history is therefore not a jump from directories to artificial intelligence. It is a steady expansion of what “knowing your customer” requires as commerce becomes more digital.
