# Digital Banking Experience
source: https://developer.mastercard.com/merchant-identifier/documentation/use-cases/digital-banking-experience/index.md

## Digital Banking Experience {#digital-banking-experience}

Digital banking offerings are built on the promise of a smarter, more transparent financial experience. Crisp, enriched merchant information is foundational to delivering on that promise.

Raw transaction data, as it arrives from card networks and payment processors, is largely unstructured and opaque. Descriptors are truncated, inconsistently formatted, and often unrecognizable to the end user. The Merchant Identifier API directly solves this, transforming a confusing stream of raw transaction information into a clean, navigable record of real-world spending that customers can instantly recognize and trust.

Beyond statement clarity, enriched merchant data unlocks the full intelligence layer of the banking experience. Accurate merchant identity and business category data enables high-precision spend categorization, personalized budgeting tools, and savings insights. These features are only as reliable as the merchant data powering them.

Enriched transaction histories also provide a richer, more grounded picture of customer financial behavior, supporting more accurate affordability assessments, credit decisions, and risk modeling than raw descriptor data alone could ever support.

Verified merchant identity and category data also opens the door to a new layer of value-added experiences like targeted cashback and rewards programs, contextually relevant financial product recommendations, and merchant partnership models built on accurate, auditable attribution. These opportunities are structurally dependent on knowing, with confidence, where a cardholder spent and with whom.

### Where it applies {#where-it-applies}

Merchant and transaction enrichment is applicable across the digital banking ecosystem and its adjacent verticals:

* **Personal Finance Management (PFM), Budgeting \& Financial Wellness Apps** are entirely dependent on accurate merchant information to deliver spending insights, alerts, and recommendations.
* **Neobanks \& Digital Banks** use enriched transaction data to deliver a premium customer experience.
* **Buy Now Pay Later (BNPL) Providers, Credit \& Lending Platforms** use enriched transaction histories as an open banking signal for affordability assessment and creditworthiness.
* **Expense Management \& B2B Fintechs** use enriched transaction data to automate expense categorization, enforce spend policies in real time, and more.
* **Wealth Management \& Investment Platforms** use enriched spending data to contextualize a user's financial position, identify investable surplus, and personalize savings and investment recommendations based on actual merchant-level behavior.

## How it works {#how-it-works}

Diagram midOverview

## Relevant Endpoints {#relevant-endpoints}

[Merchant Identifier](https://developer.mastercard.com/merchant-identifier/documentation/api-reference/index.md#tag/Merchants/operation/getMerchants)
Use Merchant Identifier to identify the accepting merchant within a payment transaction. Use the standardized merchant profile for digital banking experience, and unlock additional merchant intelligence by passing the returned Location ID into the [Places API](https://developer.mastercard.com/places/documentation/api-reference/#tag/Places/operation/getPlaceByLocationIdUsingGET) for an extended set of location-level attributes.

API Reference: `GET /merchants`

[Find Details on a Place](https://developer.mastercard.com/places/documentation/api-reference/#tag/Places/operation/getPlaceByLocationIdUsingGET)
Use a 'Location ID' obtained from Mastercard solutions such as Merchant Identifier to retrieve additional information about a merchant location. Places Details provides access to merchant attributes, location information, business status, and other merchant intelligence associated with a specific location.
Tip: For request parameters, example inputs, response payloads and sandbox test data, see [Search - by Transaction Descriptor](https://developer.mastercard.com/merchant-identifier/documentation/tutorials-and-guides/endpoint-overview/search-by-descriptor/index.md) in the [Endpoint Overview](https://developer.mastercard.com/merchant-identifier/documentation/tutorials-and-guides/endpoint-overview/index.md).

## Useful Links {#useful-links}

* [View the full Open API Specification](https://developer.mastercard.com/merchant-identifier/documentation/api-reference/index.md)
* [Review the APIs error responses](https://developer.mastercard.com/merchant-identifier/documentation/code-and-formats/index.md)