Increase, an API-first banking provider, has integrated real-time merchant data from Spade into card transactions, giving card programmes additional information to support authorisation and fraud decisions.

Through the integration, card transactions processed through Increase will include a Spade enrichment record containing the merchant’s trading and legal names, logo, website, phone number, physical location and an industry classification of up to four levels.

Spade said its merchant data is delivered in under 40 milliseconds with accuracy above 99%. The enrichment field is optional, meaning transactions can still be approved when merchant data is unavailable.

Each transaction is checked against Spade’s Merchant Graph, a database covering 99.9% of businesses across the US and Canada, according to the company.

The database links individual store locations with parent brands and owners and updates as merchant IDs change. This is designed to help identify the same business when it appears under different transaction descriptors.

Spade said its data also covers smaller and newly established businesses, can identify merchants behind payments processed through providers such as Square, and distinguishes delivery apps and marketplaces acting as third parties.

The merchant data can be used by card programmes to improve transaction descriptions for cardholders, support fraud and authorisation rules and provide additional information for analytics and AI applications.

For example, card programmes can use merchant category and location data when assessing transactions or calculating the distance between a merchant and a cardholder’s home.

The data is surfaced through the real-time card records available to Increase customers and can also be accessed later for display and other use cases.

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