Mercator Advisory Group offers research and advisory memberships that provide 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 create 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
• Third-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 third-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 isn’t 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.
  Your internal resources 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 technology’s 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 processes to maximize the benefit to your organization.

Memberships can be customized to suit your specific needs. We offer seven separate Member Service areas which each has its 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.

Prepaid Advisory Service — This service researches 34 different prepaid market segments, including solutions implemented on Branded Card Networks, Closed Loop Networks, and the EBT. Research includes in-depth reports on specific segments and research on how key issues will impact the prepaid industry.

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.

International — This service focuses on the needs of global markets related to the development of payments-related services. This practice serves the interests of issuers, acquirers, processors, the vendors and consultancies who service them, and is interested in the infrastructure issues (regulatory, technology, competition) that drive change within the global payments industry.

Retail Banking Advisory Service — This service focuses on challenges and opportunities retail bankers, with their vendors, face as they grow domestic and international market share through targeted acquisitions, new product introductions, organic market growth, and deployment of next-generation technologies. Additionally, this service will address the looming generational change that will roil both internal bank management structure and culture as it irrevocably transforms the very global marketplace in which a new generation of bankers will compete.

Corporate Banking Advisory Service — This service extends Mercator’s payments industry leadership to the small business, business banking, and corporate/wholesale banking industries. This service partners with bankers as they assume the mantle of trusted advisor to corporate customers, tackling an array of new competitors and the convergence of a slowing domestic economy, increasingly complex supply chain management spokes, and the challenges of growing globally.

You may select any subset or all of these services to build a membership program best suited to your needs.

Memberships include (for each service selected):

• Deliverables
  
  • 12 reports per service area per year (20 to 30+ pages each) and related Powerpoint presentations
  • Direct, unlimited analyst access to the research team (for each service area selected)
  • Direct, limited access to all Mercator Advisory Group research teams (for all research areas)
  • Access to all back research in the service(s) selected
  • 15 login IDs per service (IDs access all subscribed areas)
  • One dedicated day of analyst time to be used as you see fit. For client conferences, market strategy presentations, third-rd party strategy validations, training sessions, etc.
• Reprints & Reports
  
  • Discounted reprint rates and Web-posting rates
  • Discounted rates for one-off note purchases
• Speakers
  
  • Priority in booking speakers and analyst sessions

Additional information on these services is available under each services on the left menu bar or by contacting us directly at info@mercatoradvisorygroup.com or 781-419-1700.