Per the official announcement, the Fiserv Small Business Index will be published during the first week of every month, with the aim to deliver deeper insights more rapidly than existing measurements and empower users to respond to emerging trends.
According to Fiserv, the index is differentiated by its direct aggregation of consumer spending activity within the US small business ecosystem. Rather than relying on survey or sentiment data, the Fiserv Small Business Index is derived from POS transaction data, including card, cash, and check transactions in-store and online, across approximately 2 million US small businesses.
Each month, the Fiserv Small Business Index will provide information and analysis to help business owners, lenders, policymakers, economists, analysts, and investors understand the trajectory of certain sectors within the small business ecosystem, benchmark sales performance, make well-informed decisions, and adapt to an ever-changing market.
Benchmarked to 2019, the Fiserv Small Business Index provides a numeric value measuring consumer spending, with an accompanying transaction index measuring customer traffic. Through a simple interface, users can access data by region, state, and/or across business types categorised by the North American Industry Classification System. Computing a monthly index for 16 sectors and 34 sub-sectors, the Fiserv Small Business Index is intended to become a standard reference point for the state of small business, providing a measure of small business performance even in industries where large businesses dominate.
About Fiserv
Based in the US, Fiserv is a Fortune 500 company, that aspires to move money and information in a way that moves the world. As a global provider of payments and financial technology, the company seeks to help clients achieve best-in-class results through a commitment to innovation in areas including account processing and digital banking solutions; card issuer processing and network services; payments; ecommerce; merchant acquiring and processing; and the Clover cloud-based point-of-sale and business management platform.
In October 2023, Fiserv
announced its partnership with B2B payments platform Melio to improve how financial institutions meet the payment needs of SMBs. Throughout this partnership, the CashFlow Central from Fiserv service would be launched, representing an integrated digital payment and cash flow management experience.
The product is set to combine the easy-to-use accounts payable and receivable workflows of Melio with the biller and merchants’ network and payment capabilities of Fiserv, to allow small businesses to send electronic invoices, electronify all supplier invoices, accept transactions and payments via ACH transfers or credit card, as well as pay both billers and suppliers via a bank account or credit card.
