Barclays Bank is launching a new online data insights service that enables small and medium enterprises (SME) to track key financial metrics and compare their performance against similar businesses in their locality.
Available in May 2016 for a monthly fee of £4.95, the SmartBusiness service will reveal key trends around business inflows and outflows and show how money is paid in from cash, debit cards and cheques, in addition to an average spend by customer.
Ian Rand, CEO of Barclays Business comments: “We want to give small businesses access to affordable market insights that traditionally would be the preserve of larger companies. We are equipping the nations businesses with access to their own data in a form that’s much easier to use, and supporting the government’s plans to promote digital business solutions around data.”
Using anonymised sector data, businesses will be able to compare against similar businesses in their area and track how they are performing over time. Users with a Barclaycard terminal will also be able to view customer insights such as behaviours, audiences, and spending patterns.
Its design will help businesses design loyalty or reward schemes planning, by having an easy to read summary of customer spend and visits, says Rand.
Peter Simon, head of information at Barclays, says: “The time within which we can crunch billions of lines of transaction data is reducing rapidly, making new services possible for the first time ever. We want small businesses to have this data at their finger-tips as we believe this SmartBusiness insight can really help them grow their bottom line, make informed choices, and tailor services for their customers.”