Tapping Into the Data of MasterCard

Payment-solutions provider MasterCard Worldwide recently introducedMasterCard Advisors Merchant Solutions, a suite of data analytics and information products to help merchants analyze spending activity in their industry.

MasterCard Advisors is tapping into the spending information culled from annual transactions of 340 million MasterCard-branded credit, charge and debit cards issued in the United States. The information also takes into account estimates of sales made using other forms of payment, including cash, check and other credit- and debit-card networks.

Among the information products available is SpendingPulse, a national retail-sales report based on industry sector; Benchmark Analytics, a Web-based application that analyzes merchant performance within an industry category or against a set of competitors; and Custom Marketing Solutions, which uses data about spending patterns to identify best prospects and develop custom offers geared to specific target segments.

A video about Advisor Merchant Solutions is available athttp://tinyurl.com/yan2761. For more information, visit www.mastercard.com.—Alison A. Nieder