Frequently Asked Questions

Customer loyalty is built upon Communication, Choice, Control, and Connection. Focusing on proactive updates and transparent data usage will empower customers and foster an emotional link to your brand, and help you influence their money management.

Yes, different branches of the same business will usually have their own merchant account ID, as it helps the business with tracking and analytics. This is, however, typically more complicated for banks and their customers, as it can be confusing when more than one store exists in the same area. 

Banks need to identify the exact store within their merchant ID process. Moneyhub is one of only a few providers to do this as standard, using address data and map visualisations.  

No, there’s no standardised merchant account number list. It’s up to the banks to create their own system with the data, which can be confusing when you have multiple merchant accounts with similar names. It’s why building in-house for this feature is heavily resource-intensive and expensive (in the millions), and most financial institutions prefer to outsource it to a dedicated merchant account provider. 

Merchant Category Codes (MCCs) were introduced by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO), and are now maintained by card payments networks like Visa and Mastercard. They’re a global categorisation system for merchants, using 4-digit codes to signal the type of merchant. 

However, relying solely on merchant category codes in payment processing continues to limit the ability to recognise and analyse transactions, because the merchant name isn’t necessarily provided. This is especially the case for business bank account transfers, where the name of a sole trader might not obviously indicate the merchant services because it doesn't necessarily match the trading name or merchant statement documents. 

Historically, these codes were introduced to help with expense claims, so in categories like airlines or hotels, each provider has their own code. In categories that are less common for expenses, though, such as groceries, every supermarket shares the same code. This limits usefulness and transparency. 

Leading banks and lenders overcome the challenges of silo'd merchant ID number or MCC data by performing the merchant identification process as part of their categorisation and enrichment.

Merchant identification is the process of finding out the name of the business where a transaction took place. Every business has a unique merchant identification number, from ‘Sainsburys’ to ‘Primark’ or even ‘Jennings Bet’. 

At Moneyhub, we convert the merchant identification number to the merchant name, known as merchant detection. This information is then attached to other transaction data like payment amount and time of purchase in the banking apps that we service for ease of recognition and further analysis.  

Not all categorisation and enrichment providers arrive at their merchant identifier in the same way, which means that the outcome of a brand name isn’t guaranteed. When providers can’t identify exact merchant names, it’s more difficult for customers to recognise transactions, and for financial institutions to perform further analysis.

Wait… so a merchant identification number isn’t the same as merchant identification?

The short answer: no, they’re different. 

The longer explanation: a raw 15-digit string of numbers is the merchant ID number. Some banks and lenders will find this data sufficient and include it in its raw form in transaction descriptions, confusing end users and making it harder for employees to analyse. Unfortunately there’s no universal merchant identification number lookup service to bypass this obscure output, either.

However, most categorisation and enrichment systems transform this merchant number into the merchant’s trading name after a customer payment. This process of determining the merchant name from the numbers is the merchant identification (or detection) process.

Financial institutions use agentic AI to automate complex workflows like autonomous fraud response, where agents don't just flag a transaction but independently freeze the account, notify the customer, and initiate a recovery ticket.

ChatGPT is primarily a generative AI, but it exhibits agentic properties when it uses features like Advanced Data Analysis or specialised GPTs to browse the web and run code. As the platform evolves with reasoning models and tool-use capabilities, it is moving further away from simple chat and closer to a fully agentic system.

Traditional AI typically responds to specific prompts or follows fixed rules to generate content, whereas agentic AI can independently plan, use tools, and execute multi-step tasks to achieve a high-level goal. While standard AI acts as a digital assistant waiting for instructions, agentic AI functions more like a digital employee capable of self-correction and reasoning.

The six types of nudges are: attention, perception, memory, effort, intrinsic motivation and extrinsic motivation. Framing nudges around one of these distinctive cognitive mechanisms has shown to influence behaviour.

A nudge strategy is a behavioral science approach that subtly alters the environment to influence people’s decisions without forbidding any options or significantly changing economic incentives. In finance, this strategy is used to guide customers toward better habits, like increasing savings or paying off high-interest debt, by leveraging cognitive biases.

Effective financial nudges should be timely, easy to act upon, and ethically transparent to ensure they benefit the consumer's long-term health. These rules often focus on simplifying complex choices, such as auto-enrolling employees into pension schemes while maintaining their right to opt out.

Moneyhub has a number of programs to help build a sense of community at work, including:

• Weekly check-ins: a chance to highlight the positives and voice any concerns
• Guild hub: find like-minded people to discuss your passions with, we currently have guilds dedicated to AI, Diversity and Inclusion, public speaking and technical languages
• A transparent and collaborative culture: every voice matters, and everyone at Moneyhub contributes to a supportive working environment