MasterCard has partnered with IBM to offer real-time, analytics-based market insights for smaller merchants.
The alliance combines IBM’s Watson Analytics data discovery tool and aggregated and anonymised MasterCard transaction data gathered through MasterCard Advisors Local Market Intelligence (LMI).
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MasterCard Advisors’ LMI offers insights on three main areas, business performance, customer behaviour and competitive standing, while the IBM Watson Analytics tool, featuring natural language-based cognitive abilities, offers cloud-based guided analytics, data visualisation and predictive analytics.
The integration of the two will offer merchants insights on revenue, market share, customer demographics and competitors, allowing them to make better decisions.
Merchants accepting MasterCard can access the new service from mid-2016, on a subscription basis.
IBM ASEAN financial services sector leader Yashesh Kampani said: "We are thrilled to be working hand in hand with MasterCard to help smaller merchants understand their business and competition better, and increase the strength and value of their customer relationships.
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By GlobalData"Through this new service, merchants will discover just how easy leveraging Big Data can actually be with the analytical tools that IBM and MasterCard are making available."
