Enriched merchant dataPrivate preview

Enriched merchant data refers to the comprehensive information Stripe provides on card transactions, and uses a database of merchant data in the US. It’s available for Stripe Issuing users in the US.

Use cases

You can use enriched merchant data to:

• Improve fraud prevention: The data Stripe uses can improve fraud detection by providing detailed merchant information and transaction activity.
  • Use counterparty IDs in fraud detection models: The unique counterparty ID associated with businesses helps track spending patterns and identify anomalies across multiple locations. You can integrate this data into both rule-based algorithms and ML-based fraud models.
  • Restrict cards based on business location: Apply precise geospatial data to restrict transactions to specific locations and to reduce card misuse or fraudulent activities.
  • Improve authorization logic: Access to enriched information provides additional context during transaction evaluations, rather than only relying on generic merchant category codes. This reduces the likelihood of declines because of insufficient or incorrect information.
• Provide personalized notifications and spending alerts: For example, instead of a generic alert such as “You made a purchase at Powdur,” use location details to send a contextual notification such as “You made a purchase at Powdur on Frederick Avenue in Brothers, OR."
• Gain insights into customer preferences: Gain insights into customer behavior among various segments and spending patterns. This can enable personalized services, such as tailored cash-back offers for frequent suppliers, using counterparty IDs rather than manually consolidating information across multiple merchant IDs.

Access enriched merchant data

Stripe sends events for each authorization attempt and enriches the data. You don’t need to perform additional steps to access enriched transaction details. You can create detailed authorization rules using the enriched_merchant_data property of the Authorization object.

• Counterparty ID: Every matched counterparty has a counterparty ID that remains consistent across transactions, regardless of location. If no ID is returned, it indicates no counterparty match in the merchant database, and Stripe won’t enrich the data.
• Location details: Each counterparty object includes precise geographic data (latitude and longitude). Each location (such as a specific store name) is assigned a unique location ID. This allows issuers on Stripe to take advantage of geospatial signals in transaction decision making. For example, a fleet card (truckers’ gas card) startup might use latitude and longitude to determine whether the particular gas station is on a driver’s route to prevent unauthorized use or fraud (in this case, fuel theft).
• Industry: The primary industry of the counterparty fits into a hierarchical classification system. For example, the industry for a department store is Retail, and their sub-industry is General Goods (Department Stores).
• Website and phone number: Most businesses have an associated website and phone number. Stripe provides these fields in the enriched merchant data, but you also can retrieve them from the transaction in the merchantName or city fields.

{
  "id": "iauth_1JVXl82eZvKYlo2CPIiWlzrn",
  "object": "issuing.authorization",
  ...
  "merchant_data": {
    ...
    "enriched_merchant_data": {
      "counterparty": [
        {
          // This is a unique ID associated with this counterparty.
          "id": "d730906b-f1a8-49f1-9939-f27390170a6d",
          "name": "Walmart",
          "legalName": "Walmart Inc",
          // This counterparty's industry (in the context of the current transaction).
          // The industry is a hierarchical tree, listed in descending order
          // (from most general to most specific).
          "industry": [
            {
              "id": "011-000-000-000",
              "name": "Retail",
              "icon": "https://static.v2.spadeapi.com/categories/ee4ee39fd5474d31ac42f9e606b9040a/light.png"
            },
            {
              "id": "011-018-000-000",
              "name": "General Goods",
              "icon": "https://static.v2.spadeapi.com/categories/ee4ee39fd5474d31ac42f9e606b9040a/light.png"
            },
            {
              "id": "011-018-002-000",
              "name": "Department Stores",
              "icon": "https://static.v2.spadeapi.com/categories/ee4ee39fd5474d31ac42f9e606b9040a/light.png"
            }
          ],
          // An assessment of how confident we are that this counterparty was
          // involved in this transaction.
          "matchScore": 93.6,
          // The specific location at which this transaction took place.
          // This list can currently contain up to one location.
          "location": [
            {
              // This is a unique ID associated with this location.
              "id": "380e18b7-bf9e-3545-b27e-80e36301c540",
              "address": "1590 Dunlawton Ave Suite 100",
              "addressLine1": "1590 Dunlawton Ave",
              "addressLine2": "Suite 100",
              "city": "Port Orange",
              "region": "FL",
              "postalCode": "32127",
              "country": "USA",
              "phoneNumber": "+13867562711",
              "latitude": 29.116576,
              "longitude": -81.02062
            }
          ],
          // The counterparty's logo
          "logo": "https://v1.spadeapi.com/logos/verified/walmart.png?size=large",
          // The median amount of money spent per transaction at this counterparty.
          "medianSpendPerTransaction": 22.77,
          // The counterparty's phone number (if this counterparty has multiple
          // locations, this will generally be its corporate phone number).
          "phoneNumber": "+18004386278",
          "website": "walmart.com"
        }
      ]
    }
  },
  ...
}

Discrepancies can arise between enriched merchant data and data from card networks (such as Visa). If this happens, check timestamps and other relevant fields. Doing so helps identify the sources of discrepancy and you can fall back on the network data when the enriched merchant data isn’t accurate or present.

We provide enriched data when available, but it might not always be present. If enriched data is missing, check that your integration is correctly set up to call the Authorizations API and verify that your implementation is listening for authorization events. If you have any questions about the enriched merchant data output, contact issuing-support@stripe.com. If you notice inaccuracies or omissions in the merchant data, log the details and contact Stripe support.