There’s no disputing the power that information provides people involved in the payments industry. These days, mom-and-pop merchants can benefit from Big Data just as much as high volume e-commerce titans.

At the forefront of importance for merchants big and small are the issues of security and authorization.

Nathan Trousdell, Director of Strategy & Corporate Development at Acapture, explained it this way: “In the past, a merchant would receive reports back from their PSP with a list of transactions, noting which ones were declined and which ones were approved. No insight was offered into why declines were happening or how they could be prevented from happening again. The results were inflexible facts leaving the merchant with no clue as to how to use them.”

But big data science is going deeper and can provide information that, when used effectively, can pinpoint transaction decline/approve trends and consumer motivations that are crucial in today’s omnichannel landscape.

Data mining can track behavior, monitor device usage, network usage, customer behavior and more and ultimately create data that can enhance fraud security issues that plague e-commerce businesses in particular.

Data analytics can provide miles of information on consumer habits that can be used in a multitude of ways by business big and small.

But according to the Harvard Business Review, most of American businesses are “nowhere close” to utilizing or even recognizing the value of data analytics.

As the industry continues to evolve, one thing is almost entirely certain — most experts agree that data and data analytics are here to stay.

Contact a National Merchants Association representative today and find out how data analytics can take your business to new levels. Call (866) 509-7199.