# Merchant Enrichment
source: https://developer.mastercard.com/places/documentation/use-cases/merchant-enrichment/index.md

### Overview {#overview}

Merchant identities are often fragmented across systems, datasets, and transaction records. Organizations frequently have access to merchant descriptors, merchant IDs, or business names, but lack the contextual information needed to understand who the merchant is, where they operate, and how they fit into a broader business process.

Merchant enrichment helps convert raw merchant information into standardized, business-friendly merchant profiles. By combining Merchant Identifier and Places APIs, organizations can match merchant records to Mastercard's merchant dataset and retrieve additional business attributes, location information, and merchant intelligence. This enriched information can be used to support customer experiences, reporting, analytics, onboarding, segmentation, and operational decision-making.

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

Various industry segments use merchant enrichment to improve business processes and customer experiences:

* **Financial Institutions** enrich merchant records to improve customer experiences, portfolio analytics, and merchant segmentation.
* **Digital Banking Applications** provide customers with richer merchant information and contextual transaction experiences.
* **Merchant Analytics Platforms** augment transaction and merchant datasets with standardized merchant intelligence.
* **Marketing and Advertising** : Advertising departments and agencies selling goods and services to merchant locations optimize their lead generation activities by enriching their pipeline with extensive attributes and contact information, as well as adding newly opened merchants to their prospect queues.

## Relevant Endpoints {#relevant-endpoints}

[Merchant Identifier](https://developer.mastercard.com/merchant-identifier/documentation/api-reference/#tag/Merchants/operation/getMerchants)
Use Merchant Identifier to resolve merchant inputs into a standardized merchant profile and returns a Location ID that can be passed to Places for additional merchant intelligence.

[Find Details on Places](https://developer.mastercard.com/places/documentation/api-reference/index.md#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.

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

Diagram midOverview

## Useful Links {#useful-links}

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