Private Label Initiatives Drive New Competition in the Store Card Market

Abstract

Mercator Advisory Group offers research and advisory memberships that offer unparalleled, independent and objective analysis into the use of technology and its impact on business process within the consumer payments industry. Our commitment and focus enables us to consistently provide relevant content providing exceptional value for your research expenditure.

Our research and advisory services are used by our members for:

• Market Assessments
• Marketing Strategy Development
• Product Launch Development
• Product Management
• Sales training/positioning
• Cost Benefit Analysis Development
• Architecture Planning
• Make/Buy Decisions
• Strategic Planning
• Business Line Management
• Competitive Intelligence
• 3rd Party Strategy Validation
• Knowledge Management Groups (for use by all areas)
• By becoming a Member, you benefit from:

Obtaining the information you need while keeping costs in check

• Outsourcing augments your internal market research function enhancing your ability to compete effectively
• Team of resources added for a fraction of their cost due to cost-sharing across all Members of Mercator Advisory Group

Maximizing the effectiveness of your research expenditure

• Focused services deliver significantly greater impact for your research dollar
• Other research services do not offer as many analysts or objective reports focused on consumer payment related topics.

Acquiring an independent, objective, third-party resource

• Enables 3rd party validation efforts (for market assessments, positioning, strategic reviews, cost/benefit, etc.)
• Enables fact-finding efforts to be conducted while protecting your privacy

We believe research services such as this are critically important for your business because:

• Information gathering is crucial to understanding the changing environment. Trade press isnt enough to maintain a competitive edge. Information overload can lead to missed opportunities. Sensibly filtering and organizing relevant information directly impacts performance.
• High priced strategic resources (SVP level and up) are using too much of their time to gather/compile/filter this information. Our service enables them to spend more time analyzing and using the information rather than compiling it.
• 80% of the heavy-lifting (fact-finding/synthesizing) can be done by competent, trusted independent outside advisory services enabling internal resources to remain focused on the highest priority decisions.
• The shared resource model (outsourcing this function) enables you to gather the information you need at a fraction of the cost. Provided that the firm you choose is focused on serving areas that are of critical importance to your business
• We believe that technologys role is fundamental to your business and provides the best opportunity for us to make a meaningful impact on your bottom line. As such we have focused our efforts on the impact of technology and related business process to maximize the benefit to your organization.

Memberships can be customized to suit your specific needs. We offer three separate Member Service areas which each have their own analyst teams.

Credit Advisory Service - This service focuses on consumer payment methods involving the extension of credit. This entails card products, alternative payment methods, transaction processing, acquisition/activation strategies, customer retention/loyalty programs, portfolio management, fraud detection, credit scoring as well as related technologies and businesses (P2P, single-use card numbers etc.).

Debit Advisory Service - This service focuses on consumer payments involving funds paid directly from demand deposit accounts (checking accounts), those payments made through the association infrastructures as well as those made through ATM and bank clearing infrastructure (ACH and EFT payments), etc. This service covers debit related technologies and businesses and also includes recurring bill payment initiatives, EBPP, payroll card initiatives, as well as debit fraud detection.

Emerging Technologies Advisory Service -- This service focuses on newly emerging technologies. At present, a large emphasis of this service is on Chip/Smart Card technologies, mobile payment initiatives, chip card applications and programs, RFID devices, emerging authentication mechanisms (biometrics, etc.), purse/wallet initiatives, transportation/identity linked programs and the drivers for success in these increasingly important sectors.