The Changing World Of Merchant Bank Card Services

Merchant bank card services have evolved to include debit cards, gift and customer appreciation cards, stored value and other innovations designed to entice more customers and reward their loyalty and support. Merchant banks provide solutions for businesses to design or create card programs that help them reach a broader range of customers and increase sales.

Merchant Bank Role

Traditionally, a merchant bank provides payment and transaction processing services. This allows businesses to accept different forms of payment such as cash, checks, and credit and debit cards. The merchant bank works exclusively with businesses and does not provide the type of services found in retail banks. Individual customers of a merchant bank are looking for commerce solutions, which include point-of-sale processing, reporting and sales tracking.

Customer Loyalty Programs

Companies seek new ways to attract customers and sell their products and services. Customer loyalty and gift card programs provide a way for businesses to recognize a customer’s patronage and introduce their products and services to newer clients. These programs include branded stored-valued debit cards that can be purchased in the same way as a gift certificate. Typically these cards can be used anywhere and brandish a Visa or MasterCard logo. They allow customers to make purchases in the same way they use other debit or credit cards.

The branded cards allow businesses to track the buying patterns of customers and determine the types of buying preferences a customer has. This information, which is gathered by merchant banks that process the transactions, provides key data that a business can use to tailor its product line to meet the needs of its customers.

Capability of Merchant Banks

The merchant bank has the capability to design merchant bank card services for a business customer. The card services can be custom tailored to meet the needs of the business customer, provide the necessary information for the business to follow-up, and track customer demand.

Evolution of Merchant Bank Card Services

These services are an evolution of the old credit card processing services that simply captures payments for businesses. Technology has changed and advanced to provide more information about customers and develop useful profiles and models. These models help businesses predict customer behavior and allow businesses to retire unprofitable products and invest in the development of product lines that meet customer expectations.

As technology continues to evolve, more innovations will come about to change the relationship between merchant banks and their business customers. Merchant banks are in position to provide tremendous value to their customers based on the wealth of data that they are able to capture for business purposes. The ability of merchant banks to continue to meet the needs of a changing business market, including recognition of the rapid globalization of business, will help businesses grow and provide value to their customers through the products and services they sell.