Real purchases. A signal you can stand behind.
Better decisions start with better evidence. Not surveys. Not estimates of what someone might buy. Actual transactions showing what consumers did.
Facteus builds consumer data sources designed for decisions that matter. Sourced directly, anonymized at the source, representative of the U.S. population, and validated against the economy itself.
Because knowing where the data comes from is important. But knowing it will hold up under scrutiny gives you the confidence to act.
Big enough to see the economy.
Precise enough to understand it.
200M+
active U.S. consumer cards
A broad foundation of observed credit and debit transactions.
18+
direct financial sources
Diverse banking, financial services, and fintech relationships.
5M+
merchant locations
Visibility across the places consumers actually spend.
3,500+
brands tracked
Named brands across industries and categories for a total market view.
85%
on a 1-day lag
Daily transaction visibility, with full data fill in just five days.
We start with where people shop and what they bought. Not just what they said.
Surveys rely on memory. Receipt panels depend on participation. Opt-in datasets can skew toward consumers most willing to share.
Our consumer data sources start with passively observed purchases from a diverse network of banks, credit unions and fintech partners. We strategically partner with large, national banks and smaller regional institutions for more representative composition. That breadth helps reduce dependence on any single institution, demographic, or consumer population.
And we don’t just see where the money went. With Facteus Acuity, we can see what made it into the basket, too.
Transaction Data
Where the money went
Real credit and debit transactions show where consumers spent, what they spent, how much they spent, and how purchasing behavior changes over time.
Use it to understand consumer demand, benchmark named competitors, measure market share, follow wallet movement, and spot trends from the national economy down to a single store.
UPC Data
What they actually bought
Point-of-sale (POS) data adds visibility into the product inside the basket, including brand, category, and UPC detail where available.
With coverage across 30+ retailers in hardline and softline categories, it helps reveal product demand, competitive switching, basket composition, and changing consumer preferences.
Together, these consumer data sources give teams a more complete picture of U.S. consumer purchase behavior – from where they went to what they buy.
Turning transactions into decision-grade intelligence.
Raw transactions don’t automatically make good intelligence.
Different sources have different populations, reporting structures, and coverage. Without the right methodology, those differences can look like market trends when they’re really just data discrepancies.
Facteus turns diverse consumer data sources into a signal worth acting on.
1
Source it directly.
We work with the nation’s largest financial institutions to capture real, passively observed purchase activity. Diversity across sources helps reduce dependence on a single institution, region or consumer cohort.
2
Make it consistent.
Transactions are cleaned, standardized, and mapped to merchants, brands and categories so activity can be compared meaningfully over time.
3
Scale it for representativeness.
We model and scale the transaction signal to reflect U.S. consumers across geography, income, and generation, accounting for differences in source composition and coverage.
4
Check it against reality.
We continuously evaluate our signals against independent economic benchmarks and company-reported earnings.
The result isn’t just cleaner data. It’s a more reliable foundation for the forecasts, analysis, recommendations, and decisions that depend on it.
And because “trust us” isn’t a methodology.
We believe that you should be able to ask how data compares with the real economy and get a specific answer. So we test our consumer data sources against independent benchmarks, not just our own internal models.
48 of 50
states
fall within 2 percentage points of expected U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) Personal Consumption Expenditures spending share.
92%
average correlation
with U.S. Census Monthly Retail Sales, measuring how closely our transaction signal tracks reported retail activity.
< 2%
average revenue MAPE
for the top 100 tickers in our Beacon forecasting signal against reported company revenue.
We also know that no dataset is perfect, so we make the distinctions that matter. Coverage varies by merchant, category, geography, and product. Our UPC data reflects broad basket-level detail across specific categories: grocery, drug, apparel & footwear, convenience, hardware, home improvement, auto parts, and sporting goods. It is not, by itself, a nationally representative view of all product sales.
The goal isn’t to pretend every signal is equally strong everywhere. It’s to understand where the evidence is reliable, where additional context is needed, and which decisions it can support.
Economic intelligence doesn’t have to come at the expense of privacy.
Consumer privacy isn’t something we fix after collecting the data. Data is anonymized before it ever reaches Facteus, and transactions are privacy-protected while preserving 99.7% statistical significance using proprietary technology.
The same foundation. Different ways to make a decision.
Not every question calls for the same level of data.
Sometimes you need individual transactions to build and test your own signal. Sometimes you need a forecast, a competitive benchmark, or an answer in seconds. That's why the Facteus Intelligence Suite puts the same transaction foundation to work in different ways.
Spectrum
Transaction Stream
Choose Spectrum when you want to build it yourself.
Build your own models and proprietary signals from granular transaction data.
Beacon
Forecasting Signal
Choose Beacon when you want the forecast.
Track company performance with an established, constant-card forecasting signal.
Chroma
Spend Insights
Choose Chroma when the question is about spend, not forecasting.
Explore analytics-ready consumer spending, competitors, markets, and shoppers without doing the data preparation yourself.
Acuity
Product Granularity
Choose Acuity when the question is about products, not companies.
Move beyond merchant spend to understand product and basket-level purchases.
Beam
Verified Audiences
Choose Beam when you need to act on the data, not just read it.
Turn observed purchase behavior into audience intelligence to better inform acquisition, retention, and activation.
Don't just take our word for it. Check our signal against your internal data.
Bring us a category, competitor, market, or metric you already know.
We'll show you what the transactions say, how the signal is built, and whether it holds up against the numbers you trust.
FAQ
How are Facteus consumer data sources collected?
Facteus sources card transaction data from 18+ direct banking, financial services, and fintech sources. Product-level data comes from 30+ retailers, providing additional visibility into items purchased.
How is Facteus different from survey or receipt panel data?
Facteus card data is collected passively from observed purchases rather than relying on consumers to remember purchases, upload receipts, or join a research panel. This reduces opt-in bias, recall error, and digital-first skew.
How do you ensure the data is nationally representative?
Facteus models and scales its card transaction signal across demographic and geographic dimensions, including income, generation, and location. The resulting signal is evaluated against independent economic benchmarks, including BEA spending shares and U.S. Census retail activity. Coverage and representativeness may differ by dataset and level of analysis.
How accurate is Facteus data?
Accuracy depends on the metric, dataset, and use case. For example, we report a 92% average correlation with U.S. Census Monthly Retail Sales for our broader consumer spend insights, while Beacon has a separate company-revenue forecasting performance measure.
What's the difference between transaction data and UPC data?
Card transaction data shows the merchant, timing, and value of a purchase. UPC data adds visibility into purchased brands and UPCs where available.
How fresh is the data?
Facteus card data begins arriving the day after purchases occur. Approximately 85% is available on a 1-day lag, with full fill typically reached within five days.
Does Facteus receive personally identifiable information?
Facteus card transaction data is anonymized at the source and does not expose raw PII to Facteus. Privacy-preserving processes and governance controls support approved analysis and enterprise data use.
Can we use Facteus data in our own models and tools?
Yes. Depending on the product and license, Facteus supports natural-language analysis, dashboards, Snowflake, S3, API, and other approved workflows.