Big data has been a hot topic for years as companies look for innovative ways to become more competitive, boost customer retention, and raise their bottom line. Now merchant acquirers, which are under constant pricing and customer-retention pressure, are taking a keen interest in it, too.
“Acquirers that want to get ahead of the big-data curve have to invest in it,” says Jared Drieling, business intelligence manager for The Strawhecker Group, an Omaha, Neb.-based payments consultancy. “The investment is so great that only a handful of acquirers are proactively pursuing it.”