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ADVANCED PAYMENTS REPORT 2014 – SPONSORED BY

13. Digging for data

It’s Not Hype

Respondents overwhelmingly reject the notion that Mobile Data

data analytics is ‘all hype’ or will fall short of expectations. The combination of smart phones and payments creates a personal
data store of stunning size and capability. It can know who you are,
But the survey may be fashing a cautionary light regarding personal what you bought, where and when you bought it and how much
data and privacy in data analytics. An overwhelming majority of and by what means you paid for it. It can know what other brands of
respondents agree or strongly agree that data must be managed the same product you “Yelped” and what other product types you
carefully without being intrusive. As the emerging companies browsed. It can record in which stores you shopped (on-line and
that provide data analytics move from their campus genesis to the physical) and who you phoned while shopping. Data analytics will
competitive market, mistakes may be made which could result in fgure out which of the people you called or texted or which social
tighter regulation of data analytics in the fnancial services industry. sites that you checked most infuenced your decision. It can rank
these people’s ability to infuence your purchases and send them
The degree of threat to a person’s privacy is felt by most consumers
to be proportionate to the amount of their personal data thank you notes or coupons.
accessible by others. Big data could pose a bigger threat and the The message is clear. Even if people don’t begin to fathom how deep
computational characteristics of data analytics magnify the issue. the combination of the mobile phone, new payment instruments
Using algorithmic logic and heuristics, data analytics can identify and data analytics can reach, they have an innate sense that mobile
nuances of understanding about a payment companies can know a lot about them based on their
person that less sophisticated shopping and purchasing behaviours.
techniques can miss.

“Clearly from a banking point of view, Big Data enables you
to store and process massive amounts of information and
by defnition that enables you to make considerably more
informed decisions. But at the same time, it’s really trying to
address how those fnancial institutions manage consumers
almost down to the individual level and manage that balance
between what Big Data is, and what is the soft touch. That’s
always going to be a difcult challenge.”
Steve Wright, Managing Director at Lusis Payments

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