Merchant demographic estimation methodology

A method of providing competitive data regarding customers of a subscribing merchant and a set of competing peer merchants, said method comprising:

• identifying by a computing device goods and/or services sold by the subscribing merchant and identifying the set of competing peer merchants selling similar goods and/or services in a geographic region;
• receiving by the computing device a plurality of completed payment transactions completed at the set of competing peer merchants and subscribing merchant associated with a plurality of customers of the set of competing peer merchants and subscribing merchant;
• utilizing the computing device to flag payment transactions completed over a timeframe at the set of competing peer merchants and subscribing merchant;
• extracting a plurality of deviceholder identifications associated with a plurality of payment instruments utilized to complete each flagged payment transaction;
• transferring the extracted plurality of deviceholder identifications to an anonymized processing environment;
• receiving hashed deviceholder identifications from the anonymized processing environment and inserting into a data file;
• accessing a customer information database containing a cross-reference file to determine a plurality of demographic attributes associated with the hashed deviceholder identifications;
• aggregating the demographic attributes associated with the individuals holding each anonymized deviceholder identification to generate anonymous statistical data and inserting into the data file;
• adjusting anonymous statistical data to become representative of population demographics;
• and
• providing adjusted anonymous statistical data to subscribing merchant.