MAG Insights

Stakeholders working together to achieve a common goal, or outcome is one of the core tenets of the Merchant Advisory Group’s (MAG) mission and a cornerstone of effecting positive change in the payments ecosystem. Our merchant members gravitate to the various forums within the MAG, which provide them the opportunity to collaborate with various stakeholders, including the card brands, acquirers, service providers, and other merchants.

Our Collaboration Committee brings together more than 80 merchants from 60 unique retailers to discuss topics that impact their businesses. Merchants participate to learn from others, share ideas, ask questions, listen, and bring awareness to various payments-related topics. These conversations significantly shape our efforts outside the committee. 

By engaging with the card brands, we seek answers to common questions, offer the merchant perspective, and challenge what can sometimes seem like short-sighted rule changes. We regularly host merchant input sessions, where a group of merchants can listen, ask questions, and provide direct feedback to the card brand. I often say, “answers beget questions,” as the dialogue in these sessions can spark ideas from other participants that they may not have considered prior. We’ve held five sessions this year with three different card brands, most of which relate to future roadmap considerations for the associated card brand. Merchants have had the opportunity to provide valuable insights as the card brand builds out future products, services, and rules. In one case, a card brand recognized value in broadening their approach to a proposed rule change, and once announced will bring benefit to the entire global merchant community. This is the power of collaboration at work!

Our Special Interest Groups (SIGs), provide merchants with a unique opportunity to network with their industry peers in person at each of our conferences. We also hold virtual SIGs each summer, offering merchants an opportunity to attend a variety of SIGs instead of choosing between concurrent sessions at the in-person events. To see what’s top of mind for merchants like you, you can read the SIG notes from the summer sessions on our MAG Learning Center.

Communities of Practice (COPs) are often formed to target a specific issue, resulting in a best practice or reference guide, such as the resource released as our Faster Payments COP closed out earlier this year. Our Token COP is working on a reference guide to be released soon, and we recently established a new Fraud COP focused on a series of initiatives. You don’t need to be a subject matter expert to participate in a COP; you just need a willingness to learn and contribute to the outcome.

Reach out to Kelly Andrus if you have a question or issue you’d like to discuss at a Collaboration Committee meeting, or to learn more about our collaboration efforts.