A new big data platform from a group of banking IT veterans is set to launch next week, promising to close the transactional loop that is currently broken every time a customer leaves a store with a paper receipt.
ERN's Looop platform brings together card payment and merchant data in real time to enable banks and retailers to see the granular detail of every purchase.
The firm says that for banks, the in-depth analysis of transactional data will help them understand how people - individuals and groups - use their credit cards to purchase goods, enabling them to encourage and reward customers for usage.
Meanwhile, the platform will let merchants build effective loyalty and reward schemes that don't rely on a 'one size fits all' approach, but offers individual customers discounts on things they really want to buy.
Customers receive e-receipts and are sent customised coupons through their mobile phones, where they can also see transactions and oversee their spending.
Looop is PCI and ISO 27001 compliant and capable of processing 100,000 transactions per second, performing real-time data analysis. It is also designed to run alongside existing IT infrastructure with "minimal deployment costs".
The new outfit is led by CEO Dan Brassington, a 20-year technology veteran at global banks, most recently as head of IT client services management for RBS. Former ITRS Group CTO Quintin Gomez is onboard in the same role while Tullett's founder Derek Tullett is executive chairman.
The company - which secured $2 million from private investors late last year - is now "working towards proof of concept trials of the system in the very near future".
Says Brassington: "While banks and merchants generate reams of data every hour, the value of this data isn't realised because legacy IT systems make it impossible to evaluate and analyse in any meaningful way....Looop is all about everyone involved in the transactional ecosystem getting the maximum value from every purchase made".