Affluence Indicator

Visa, Mastercard, and Discover provide enhanced credit card products for consumers with high disposable incomes and high card spending. These cards encourage usage by offering the cardholders additional benefits usually including reward incentives, no pre-set spending limit, higher authorization approval rates, faster access to a customer service representatives, and dedicated chargeback resolution support.

Worldpay analysis of payments data indicates that consumers using these cards types typically spend more per order than consumers using traditional credit and debit cards. The Affluence Indicator feature provides the ability for merchants to segment their consumers based on the affluence level as determined by the issuer. Within the cnpAPI Authorization response, consumers using these enhanced card products are classified either as Mass Affluent or Affluent. Based upon the specific card type, high income consumers are classified as Mass Affluent, while high income-high spending consumers are classified as Affluent.

Having this information at the time of authorization, allows merchants the opportunity to adjust their sales approach to the needs and spending patterns of the consumer, potentially generating additional sales.

Having this information on file for later analysis also may provide the opportunity for targeted marketing campaigns and future sales.