diff --git "a/docs/markdowns/deepanalyze.md" "b/docs/markdowns/deepanalyze.md" new file mode 100644--- /dev/null +++ "b/docs/markdowns/deepanalyze.md" @@ -0,0 +1,738 @@ +**Data Analysis** + +## **DeepAnalyze: Agentic Large Language Models for Autonomous Data Science** + +**Data Preparation** + +**Shaolei Zhang**[1] **Ju Fan**[1] **Meihao Fan**[1] **Guoliang Li**[2] **Xiaoyong Du**[1] + +� ruc-datalab/DeepAnalyze DeepAnalyze-8B DataScience-Instruct-500K ruc-deepanalyze.github.io + +## **Abstract** + +Autonomous data science, from raw data sources to analyst-grade deep research reports, has been a long-standing challenge, and is now becoming feasible with the emergence of powerful large language models (LLMs). Recent workflow-based data agents have shown promising results on specific data tasks but remain fundamentally limited in achieving fully autonomous data science due to their reliance on predefined workflows. In this paper, we introduce _DeepAnalyze-8B_ , the first agentic LLM designed for autonomous data science, capable of automatically completing the end-toend pipeline from data sources to analyst-grade deep research reports. To tackle high-complexity data science tasks, we propose a curriculum-based agentic training paradigm that emulates the learning trajectory of human data scientists, enabling LLMs to progressively acquire and integrate multiple capabilities in real-world environments. We also introduce a data-grounded trajectory synthesis framework that constructs high-quality training data. Through agentic training, _DeepAnalyze_ learns to perform a broad spectrum of data tasks, ranging from data question answering and specialized analytical tasks to open-ended data research. Experiments demonstrate that, with only 8B parameters, DeepAnalyze outperforms previous workflow-based agents built on most advanced proprietary LLMs. The model, code, and training data of DeepAnalyze are open-sourced, paving the way toward autonomous data science. + +## **1. Introduction** + +Autonomous data science (De Bie et al., 2022; Sun et al., 2025b; Wang et al., 2025), a long-standing central goal of the data science community, aims to automate the _entire data_ + +> 1Renmin University of China 2Tsinghua University. Email: Shaolei Zhang , Ju Fan (corresponding author) . + +_Preprint._ + +**==> picture [236 x 104] intentionally omitted <==** + +**----- Start of picture text -----**
+Data Preparation
action Data Analysis
Data Modeling
Data Source Environment Orchestration Data Visualization
Data Insight
Research on the data, find some insight! feedback reasoning 1,000 fee rules across multiple dimensions. The study reveals intricate relationships between merchant characteristics,This comprehensive analysis examines the complex pricing architecture of payment processing systems, analyzingThe dataset encompasses 769 merchant category codes, 4 card schemes, and 6 authorization characteristics, creatingThe analysis reveals significant variation across pricing parameters:The merchant category codes demonstrate the highest diversity with 49 distinct values, reflecting the wide rangeThese correlations indicate that certain merchant types and transaction types consistently combine with specificThe fee rules demonstrate substantial complexity: Comprehensive Analysis of Payment Processing Fee StructuresExecutive Summary transaction attributes, and fee structures that determine payment processing costs. Through rigorous statisticalanalysis and visualization, we uncover key patterns that explain how payment processors optimize pricing whilebalancing risk and service quality. Methodology Our analysis employed a multi-method approach combining: - Descriptive statistics of 1,000 fee rules - Correlationanalysis of 6 key parameters - Rule complexity scoring - Parameter distribution visualization - Fee simulationmodelinga complex pricing matrix that adapts to over 49 distinct merchant categories. Key FindingsParameter Diversity and InteractionsParameter Diversity Metrics: of business types served by payment processors. Authorization Characteristics Indicators (ACI) show moderatediversity with 6 distinct values that categorize transaction types. Card schemes show moderate diversity with 4distinct payment networks. Parameter Correlations: payment methods, creating distinct pricing segments. Rule Complexity AnalysisRule Complexity Statistics: 1. Account Type & Credit Transactions (r=327)2. Card Scheme & Account Type (r=196)3. Card Scheme & Credit Transactions (r=132)Analysis of fee components reveals:The average fee rule incorporates elements from 8.7 different parameters, with some rules incorporating up to 15ThThe fee structure combines fixed and variable components, creating predictable baseline costs with variable compo-This analysis reveals a sophisticated pricing ecosystem where multiple parameters interact to create tailored pricingdistinct characteristics. This complexity enables precise pricing but creates challenges for merchants navigating thepricing architecture. Fe fee = fixed_amount + (rate * transaction_value / 10,000) Fee Component Distribution: nents tied to transaction value. This structure allows processors to balance risk and service quality while maintainingpricing flexibility. Business ImplicationsFor Payment ProcessorsFor MerchantsConclusion for diverse merchant needs. The complex interplay between merchant characteristics, transaction attributes, and• Fixed Amount Range: €0.01-€0.21 • Rate Range: 1-190 basis points • Average Fee for €100 Transaction: €1.421.2.3.1.2.3.e fee calculation follows the formula: The strongest parameter correlations reveal important pricing interactions: e Structure Mechanics ParameterMerchant Category CodeAuthorization Characteristics IndicatorCard SchemeCredit TransactionsIntracountry StatusAccount Type Pricing Architecture Rule Simplification Parameter Interactions Volume Optimization Fraud Management Parameter Selection can improve risk-adjusted pricing.solidation without significant revenue impact.segments for targeted pricing.tion.impacts costs. This comprehensive analysis provides both strategic insights for payment processors and practical guidance forpayment methods creates both challenges and opportunities for all stakeholders in the payment processing ecosystem.Future research cosegments and economic conditions. AppendicesAppendix A: Parameter Distribution VisualizationsAppendix B: Complete Parameter Correlation MatrixAppendix C: Fee Simulation Examples Detailed examples of fee calculations across parameter combinationsmerchants navigating complex payment pricing architectures.: The high complexity (avg. 8.7 parameters/rule) suggests opportunities for rule con-: Strong correlations between fraud levels and pricing suggest fraud prevention directly: Understanding parameter interactions can help optimize pricing strategies.: The complex parameter interactions create natural segmentation opportunities that: The volume-based pricing curves create clear incentives for transaction consolida-1: Strong correlations between account types and payment methods indicate naturalFigure 1: Parameter distribution charts showing value frequencies across key parameters uld explore longitudinal ana MetricMean ComplexityStandard DeviationMinimum25th PercentileMedian75th PercentileMaximum6Diversity Score495420.25 Figure 2: Full correlation matrix of all parameter pairs2 Value8.722.820891015 lysis of how these parameters interact across different merchant3
Research Analyst-grade
Goal Autonomous Data Science Report
**----- End of picture text -----**
+ + +_Figure 1._ DeepAnalyze-8B is the first end-to-end agentic LLM that achieves autonomous data science, supporting entire data science pipeline and open-ended data research. + +_science pipeline_ for extracting insights from structured data. This pipeline is inherently complex, consisting of a series of interdependent data-centric tasks spanning data preparation, analysis, modeling, visualization, and report generation. The emergence of open-ended data research further elevates the level of complexity, going far beyond traditional question answering or task-specific analytics. Fortunately, recent advances in large language models (LLMs) have demonstrated impressive problem-solving abilities (OpenAI, 2023; 2024; DeepSeek-AI, 2025), reshaping paradigms in domains such as search (Zheng et al., 2025; Jin et al., 2025) and mathematics (Zhang et al., 2024; Ren et al., 2025). However, despite their success on unstructured data (e.g., textual queries or contexts), LLMs still struggle to orchestrate complex, multi-stage data science pipelines and handle diverse structured data, making it difficult to achieve a general solution that works across all data science tasks. + +Addressing these challenges requires endowing LLMs with two higher-level capabilities: autonomous orchestration and adaptive optimization. First, autonomous orchestration enables LLMs to comprehend user intents and systematically coordinate a sequence of interdependent actions to accomplish complex tasks (Sapkota et al., 2025a). Second, adaptive optimization allows LLMs to interact with real-world data environments and iteratively refine their actions based on feedback (Hong et al., 2024). As shown in Figure 4, equipped with these two capabilities, an intelligent system can robustly handle a broad spectrum of data tasks, ranging from conventional question answering and task-specific analytics to fully autonomous, open-ended data research. + +--- end of page.page_number=1 --- + +**==> picture [487 x 430] intentionally omitted <==** + +**----- Start of picture text -----**
+DeepAnalyze: Agentic Large Language Models for Autonomous Data Science
End-to-end Data Pipeline Open-ended Data Research
User ( Case from DataSciBench, involving data preparation + data analysis + data visualization. ) User ( Case from DABStep-Research, conducting fully open research on structured data sources. )
Embark on a detailed analysis and visualization of the "Palmer Archipelago (Antarctica) penguin data" dataset available on Kaggle, aiming to uncover insights about penguin populations.1. - 2. - Address missing values through imputation or removal, encode categorical variables for analysis, and eliminate any duplicate entries. - - 3. - Compute essential statistical measures including mean, median, and standard deviation for quantitative attributes, and compile summary statistics for categorical variables. - - 4. Import the datasetData CleaningExploratory Data Analysis (EDA)Data VisualizationInputInputOutputInputOutput : "penguins_lter.csv" and "penguins_size.csv": "imported_data.csv": "cleaned_data.csv": "cleaned_data.csv" (This file should contain the cleaned data, which is free of duplicates and has handled missing values): "eda_results.csv" (This file should summarize the statistical measures and compositions of the dataset): :: : Environment: # Instruction Conduct open-ended data science research, finally output a research report. # Data File 1: {“name”: “acquirer_countries.csv”, "size": "0.2KB"}File 2: {“name”: “fees.json”, “size”: “518.7KB”}File 3: {“name”: “manual.md”, “size”: “21.6KB”}File 4: {“name”: “merchant_category_codes.csv”, “size”: “26.0KB”}File 5: {“name”: “merchant_data.json”, “size”: “6.7KB”}File 6: {“name”: “payments-readme.md”, “size”: “1.7KB”}File 7: {“name”: “payments.db”, "size": "21.7MB"} Environment:
①②③④⑤ To begin this analysis, I'll first need to understand the structure and content of the provided datasets. The task involves two CSV files: "penguins_lter.csv" and "penguins_size.csv". Since we need to import these files, I'll start by writing Python code to load and inspect these datasets.Key steps for initial data inspection:This initial exploration will help me understand how to proceed with the data cleaning and subsequent analysis steps. === Penguins LTER Dataset Information ===Shape: (344, 17)Columns and Data Types:studyName objectSample Number int64Species object...( … - Construct histograms for numerical attributes and bar plots for categorical variables. Use box plots to examine variations across different species and islands, and scatter plots to investigate correlations between numerical variables with regression lines. - - 5. - Specifically investigate the relationship between bill length and flipper length, including a scatter plot with regression line. - - Based on the execution results, I can make the following observations about the datasets:1. **Dataset Structure**: - The "penguins_lter.csv" contains 344 rows and 17 columns with detailed penguin data including species, location, physical measurements, and isotopic data. - The "penguins_size.csv" contains 344 rows and 7 columns with more focused physical measurements (culmen, flipper length, body mass).2. **Key Differences**: - The datasets have no common columns, suggesting they contain complementary information rather than overlapping data. - The "penguins_lter" dataset contains more detailed information including: * Species classification (Adelie, Chinstrap, Gentoo) * Geographic information (island, region) * Biological measurements (culmen, flipper length, body mass) * Isotopic data (Delta 15N, Delta 13C) * Reproductive information (clutch completion dates)3. **Data Quality**:1.import 2.# Load both datasets 3.penguins_lter = pd.read_csv(4.penguins_size = pd.read_csv( 5.# Function to display dataset information 6.def7.8.9.10.Given the dataset characteristics, I'll proceed with the following plan:1. Data Cleaning: - Standardize column names between datasets - Handle missing values (imputation or removal) - Remove duplicate entries - Merge datasets where appropriate2. Data Exploration: - Examine distributions of key variablesmore results are omitted to save space Correlation AnalysisInputOutputInputOutput 1. Load both CSV files using pandas2. Display basic information about each dataset (shape, columns, data types)3. Check for missing values4. Display sample rows to understand the data structure5. Compare the two datasets to see if they contain similar or complementary information inspect_dataset(df, name):: "cleaned_data.csv": "cleaned_data.csv"printprintprintprint: "visualizations.pdf" (This file should include all plots and graphs created during the analysis): "correlation_analysis.png" (This file should present the scatter plot displaying the correlation between the specified numerical variables) pandas(((f"\n===f"Shape:"\nColumns and Data Types:"(df.dtypes) , … as: pd {name} {df.shape} Dataset Information ==="'../penguins_lter.csv''../penguins_size.csv'") ) , … ) actively explore each data))) are omitted to save space... planning first11.12.13.14. 15.# Inspect both datasets 16.print17.print 18.# Check if datasets have common columns 19.common_cols =20.print - Both datasets have missing values, particularly in: * Body mass and isotopic measurements * Sex information * Comments field in the larger dataset - The "penguins_size" dataset has fewer missing values overall.4. **Potential Analysis Paths**: - The datasets can be merged on common identifiers (Species, Island, etc.) - The "penguins_size" dataset appears to be a subset of the more comprehensive "penguins_lter" data - The isotopic data in "penguins_lter" could provide interesting ecological insights5. **Next Steps**: - Need to clean and merge the datasets - Handle missing values appropriately - Standardize column names for merging - Explore relationships between physical measurements - Compare measurements across species - Investigate relationships between physical measurements3. Visualization: - Create histograms for key measurements - Generate boxplots by species - Scatter plots for correlation analysisFirst, I‘ll write code to clean and merge the datasets: ...(printprintprintreturn(inspect_dataset(penguins_lter,(inspect_dataset(penguins_size,(f"\nCommon columns between datasets:((df.isnull().( df.head("\nMissing Values:""\nSample Data:" set(penguins_lter.columns) &3) sumcleaned_data.csv())) ) "Penguins LTER" "Penguins Size" set {common_cols}understand the data structureomitted to save space(penguins_size.columns))))) ") ) ⑦⑥②④⑤①③ Merchant Category Codes Data:==================================================Number of MCCs: 769First 10 MCCs: Unnamed: 0 mcc description0 0 1520 General Contractors - Residential and Commercial The manual.md file provides comprehensive documentation about payment processing systems, including:1. Key business concepts:- Merchant account types (R, D, H, F, S, O)- Merchant Category Codes (MCC) for business classification- Authorization Characteristics Indicator (ACI) for transaction types- Fee calculation methodology (fixed_amount + rate * transaction_value/10000)...(The manual provides the essential context needed to properly interpret the other data files, particularly fees.json which contains the actual fee rules Based on the manual content, the next logical steps are:The immediate next step should be to examine merchant_category_codes.csv since MCC is a key parameter in fee rules. This will help understand how businesses are categorized for pricing purposes.I'll generate code to: To begin this comprehensive data science research, I will first need to understand the structure and content of each provided file. The files appear to relate to payment processing data, including merchant information, transaction fees, and payment records. Here's my initial analysis plan:The immediate next step is to inspect the manual.md file which likely contains important documentation about the dataset structure and business rules. This will help guide my analysis of the other files.I'll start by writing Python code to read and display the contents of manual.md, as this will provide crucial context for interpreting the other files. Manual.md content:==================================================# Merchant Guide to Optimizing Payment Processing and Minimizing Fees...( more results are omitted to save spacemore results are omitted to save space 1.# Read and display the manual.md file 2.with3.4.5.6.1.import2.import 3.# Read the merchant category codes file 4.mcc_df = pd.read_csv( 5.# Display basic information 6.print7.print8.print9.print10.print11.print12.print 13.# Show summary statistics 14.print15.print1. Examine the merchant_category_codes.csv to understand the MCC taxonomy used in fee calculations2. Analyze fees.json which contains the actual fee rules referenced in the manual3. Explore merchant_data.json to understand merchant attributes that influence fees4. Investigate payments.db for transaction-level data1. Read the CSV file2. Display sample records3. Show summary statistics4. Visualize the distribution of MCCs1. First, I'll examine the smallest files (acquirer_countries.csv and manual.md) to understand the basic context and data dictionary2. Then I'll analyze the merchant data (merchant_data.json and merchant_category_codes.csv)3. Next, I'll explore the fee structure (fees.json) which appears to be the largest file4. Finally, I'll examine the payment transaction data (payments.db and payments-readme.md)content = file.read()printprintprint open(((( pandas matplotlib.pyplot"Merchant Category Codes Data:""="f"Number of MCCs:"\nFirst 10 MCCs:"(mcc_df.head(((mcc_df.tail((("\nLast 10 MCCs:""\nSummary Statistics:""="((((content)*'manual.md'"Manual.md content:""="50*50)* as)50) pd1010,'merchant_category_codes.csv')))) 'r' { as))len) as plt(mcc_df)} file:)))) )") ) explore the overview of data sourcesidentify key data (manual.md) and 16.print 17.# Visualize the distribution of MCCs by first two digits (category) 18.mcc_df[19.category_counts = mcc_df[20.plt.figure(figsize=(21.category_counts.plot(kind=22.plt.title(23.plt.xlabel(24.plt.ylabel(25.plt.xticks(rotation=26.plt.tight_layout()27.plt.savefig(28.print.png'"7.8.9.10.11.12. )print # Also save the content to a text file for reference withprint(mcc_df.describe(include=("\nSaved MCC category distribution plot to 'mcc_category_distribution'category'explore the database (payments.db) andtables (merchant_category_codes.csv )(outfile.write(content) open"="('Distribution of Merchant Category Codes by First Two Digits'"\nSaved manual content to 'manual_content.txt'"'Category Code (First 2 Digits)''Number of MCCs''mcc_category_distribution.png'*50('manual_content.txt') ] = mcc_df[1245,) 6planning first'category'))'bar')'mcc''all') ].astype(,))].value_counts().sort_index() 'w' . ) asstr)) outfile:).str[:2] ) )
⑥ The cleaned data is now ready for in-depth analysis. For the next steps, I'll:1. Perform comprehensive EDA: - Calculate descriptive statistics - Analyze distributions by species - Examine measurement correlations2. Create visualizations: 3. Conduct correlation analysis: - Focus on bill length vs flipper length - Generate regression plots4. Save all outputs: - Statistical summaries - Visualization files data preparation Several 1 1 1711 Heating, Plumbing, and Air Conditioning Contra...2 2 1731 Electrical Contractors...(Saved MCC category distribution plot to 'mcc_category_distribution.png’ more results are omitted to save space …, ) …, … , … are omitted to save space..
Several - Boxplots by species - Scatter plots for correlations - Histograms for measurement distributions … , … , … are omitted to save space... - Final analysis reportThe code will generate all required outputs while maintaining clear documentation. ⑧ # Comprehensive Analysis of Payment Processing Fee Structures## Executive SummaryThis comprehensive analysis examines the complex pricing architecture of payment processing systems, analyzing 1,000 fee rules across multiple dimensions. The study reveals intricate relationships between merchant characteristics, transaction attributes, and fee structures that determine payment processing costs. Through rigorous statistical analysis and visualization, we uncover key patterns that explain how payment processors optimize pricing while balancing risk and service quality....(more results are omitted to save spaceresearch on the data)
eda_results.csv culmen_vs_ correlation body_mass data science research report
⑦ … # Comprehensive Analysis of Palmer Archipelago Penguin Data## 1. Data Preparation and Cleaning- Successfully merged two datasets containing penguin measurements- Handled missing values by removing incomplete records- Final cleaned dataset contains 344 complete observations## 2. Key Findings### Physical Characteristics by Species- **Adelie Penguins**: - Average body mass: 3,750g - Average culmen length: 39.1mm- **Chinstrap Penguins**: - Distinctive culmen depth (18.7mm)- - Largest body mass (5,000g average)### Measurement Correlations- Strong positive correlation between bill length and flipper length (r=0.82)- Significant variation in body mass across species (p<0.001)## 3. Visualizations Generated1. **Body Mass Distribution**: - Clear species differentiation in mass distributions2. **Bill vs Flipper Length**:**Gentoo Penguins**:data analysis , …, … flipper , … - Linear relationship with positive slope3. **Geographic Variation**: - Island-specific measurement patterns## 4. Biological Insights- Species-specific morphological adaptations- Island-specific size variations- Sex-based differences in body proportions## 5. Methodology- Rigorous data cleaning process- Multiple validation checks- Comprehensive statistical testing## 6. ConclusionThis analysis provides valuable insights into penguin morphology and ecology, demonstrating:- Species-specific adaptations- Environmental influences- Measurement relationshipsAll analysis files and visualizations are available in the output directory.![Body Mass by Species](body_mass_by_species.png)![Bill Length vs Flipper Length](correlation_analysis.png) are omitted to save space.. _analysis final summarization_by_speciesdata visualization 1,000 fee rules across multiple dimensions. The study reveals intricate relationships between merchant characteristics,This comprehensive analysis examines the complex pricing architecture of payment processing systems, analyzingThe dataset encompasses 769 merchant category codes, 4 card schemes, and 6 authorization characteristics, creatingThe analysis reveals significant variation across pricing parameters:The merchant category codes demonstrate the highest diversity with 49 distinct values, reflecting the wide rangeThese correlations indicate that certain merchant types and transaction types consistently combine with specificThe fee rules demonstrate substantial complexity: Comprehensive Analysis of Payment Processing Fee StructuresExecutive Summary transaction attributes, and fee structures that determine payment processing costs. Through rigorous statisticalanalysis and visualization, we uncover key patterns that explain how payment processors optimize pricing whilebalancing risk and service quality. Methodology Our analysis employed a multi-method approach combining: - Descriptive statistics of 1,000 fee rules - Correlationanalysis of 6 key parameters - Rule complexity scoring - Parameter distribution visualization - Fee simulationmodelinga complex pricing matrix that adapts to over 49 distinct merchant categories. Key FindingsParameter Diversity and InteractionsParameter Diversity Metrics: of business types served by payment processors. Authorization Characteristics Indicators (ACI) show moderatediversity with 6 distinct values that categorize transaction types. Card schemes show moderate diversity with 4distinct payment networks. Parameter Correlations: payment methods, creating distinct pricing segments. Rule Complexity AnalysisRule Complexity Statistics: 1. Account Type & Credit Transactions (r=327)2. Card Scheme & Account Type (r=196)3. Card Scheme & Credit Transactions (r=132) The strongest parameter correlations reveal important pricing interactions:ParameterMerchant Category CodeAuthorization Characteristics IndicatorCard SchemeCredit TransactionsIntracountry StatusAccount Type 1 6Diversity Score495420.25 Analysis of fee components reveals:The average fee rule incorporates elements from 8.7 different parameters, with some rules incorporating up to 15The fee calculation follows the formula:The fee structure combines fixed and variable components, creating predictable baseline costs with variable compo-This analysis reveals a sophisticated pricing ecosystem where multiple parameters interact to create tailored pricingdistinct characteristics. This complexity enables precise pricing but creates challenges for merchants navigating thepricing architecture. Fee Structure Mechanics fee = fixed_amount + (rate * transaction_value / 10,000) Fee Component Distribution: nents tied to transaction value. This structure allows processors to balance risk and service quality while maintainingpricing flexibility. Business ImplicationsFor Payment ProcessorsFor MerchantsConclusion for diverse merchant needs. The complex interplay between merchant characteristics, transaction attributes, and• Fixed Amount Range: €0.01-€0.21• Rate Range: 1-190 basis points• Average Fee for €100 Transaction: €1.421.2.3.1.2.3. Pricing Architecture Rule Simplification Parameter Interactions Volume Optimization Fraud Management Parameter Selection can improve risk-adjusted pricing.solidation without significant revenue impact.segments for targeted pricing.tion.impacts costs. : The high complexity (avg. 8.7 parameters/rule) suggests opportunities for rule con-: Strong correlations between fraud levels and pricing suggest fraud prevention directly: Understanding parameter interactions can help optimize pricing strategies.: The complex parameter interactions create natural segmentation opportunities that: The volume-based pricing curves create clear incentives for transaction consolida-: Strong correlations between account types and payment methods indicate naturalMetricMean ComplexityStandard DeviationMinimum25th PercentileMedian75th PercentileMaximum 2 8.722.82Value0891015 This comprehensive analysis provides both strategic insights for payment processors and practical guidance forpayment methods creates both challenges and opportunities for all stakeholders in the payment processing ecosystem.Future research could explore longitudinal analysis of how these parameters interact across different merchantsegments and economic conditions. AppendicesAppendix A: Parameter Distribution VisualizationsAppendix B: Complete Parameter Correlation MatrixAppendix C: Fee Simulation Examples Detailed examples of fee calculations across parameter combinationsmerchants navigating complex payment pricing architectures.Figure 1: Parameter distribution charts showing value frequencies across key parametersFigure 2: Full correlation matrix of all parameter pairs3
**----- End of picture text -----**
+ + +_Figure 2._ Examples of DeepAnalyze-8B. Given the instructions and data sources in the environment, DeepAnalyze can autonomously orchestrate and optimize actions to complete a data science pipeline (left) and open-ended data research (right). DeepAnalyze first performs planning, then interacts with the data in the environment, and subsequently optimizes its actions based on feedback, ultimately accomplishing the data-centric tasks. Many intermediate actions are omitted to save space. + +Existing approaches to applying LLMs for autonomous data science can be broadly categorized into _domain-specific LLMs_ and _workflow-based agents_ . Early efforts focus on developing domain-specific LLMs, such as code-oriented models (Nascimento et al., 2024; Wen et al., 2024) and structured data-oriented models (Li et al., 2023b; Jiang et al., 2023; Xu et al., 2025), to handle individual tasks like question answering or specific analytical operations. However, these models lack the capabilities for autonomous orchestration and adaptive optimization (Yang et al., 2021; Li et al., 2023a), limiting their ability to execute the entire data science pipeline. More recently, a line of work has explored workflow-based data science agents (Hollmann et al., 2023; Guo et al., 2024; Sun et al., 2025a; Hong et al., 2025), + +which rely on predefined procedural workflows to prompt closed-source LLMs (e.g., GPT-4 (OpenAI, 2023)) to complete complex tasks. Although these systems demonstrate stronger task coordination, they depend heavily on manually designed heuristics and domain-specific rules, falling short of achieving autonomous and adaptive behavior. + +In essence, both domain-specific models and workflowbased agents remain limited, as they are not trained in interactive, real-world environments. Consequently, they struggle to perform complex tasks through autonomous orchestration and adaptive optimization. Notably, recent advances in agentic training, a new training paradigm successfully applied in the search domain (Zheng et al., 2025; Jin et al., 2025), have demonstrated that reinforcement learning in + +--- end of page.page_number=2 --- + +real-world environments is crucial for enabling LLMs to develop autonomous problem-solving capabilities. + +In this paper, we aim to advance LLM-based data science methods from workflow-based agents to a trainable agentic model that learns to autonomously perform data science tasks in real-world environments. However, applying agentic training to this domain presents two key challenges: _reward sparsity_ and _trajectory scarcity_ . On the one hand, the inherent complexity of data science tasks makes it difficult for foundation LLMs to complete tasks successfully during the early stages of training. This leads to severe reward sparsity, i.e., a lack of positive reinforcement signals, which can hinder or even collapse the entire agentic training process. On the other hand, the scarcity of longchain problem-solving trajectories in data science provides insufficient guidance for LLMs to explore the solution space effectively, resulting in inefficient, blind trial-and-error exploration without meaningful intermediate supervision. + +To address these challenges, we introduce DeepAnalyze, an agentic LLM designed for autonomous data science. As illustrated in Figure 2, with only 8B parameters, DeepAnalyze can automate the entire data science pipeline, ranging from specific data tasks to open-ended data research, providing a unified and general solution for data-centric applications. Specifically, to mitigate reward sparsity, DeepAnalyze adopts a curriculum-based agentic training paradigm inspired by the learning trajectory of human data scientists. This progressive easy-to-difficult schedule enables the model to gradually evolve from mastering individual skills to developing comprehensive, adaptive problem-solving abilities in real-world environments. To address trajectory scarcity, we propose a data-grounded trajectory synthesis framework that automatically constructs high-quality reasoning and interaction trajectories, offering effective exploration guidance within the large solution space. Through this combination of curriculum-based training and trajectory synthesis, DeepAnalyze learns to autonomously orchestrate actions and adaptively optimize its strategies, enabling it to tackle complex and diverse data science tasks effectively. + +In summary, our key contributions are three-fold. + +- **Agentic Model:** To the best of our knowledge, DeepAnalyze is the first agentic LLM tailored for autonomous data science, endowed with two indispensable capabilities, _autonomous orchestration_ and _adaptive optimization_ . DeepAnalyze serves as a _foundation model_ that can be directly applied or further customized through prompting or supervised fine-tuning for specific scenarios. + +- **Agentic Training** : We propose a curriculum-based agentic training paradigm with data-grounded trajectory synthesis to address _reward sparsity_ and _trajectory scarcity_ , enabling effective learning for high-complexity tasks that require multiple abilities. + +- **Strong Performance** : Experimental results on 12 benchmarks show that, with only 8B parameters, **DeepAnalyze8B** surpasses most advanced proprietary LLMs. More importantly, it is the first agentic model capable of performing open-ended data research and generating analystgrade reports. + +## **2. Related Work** + +**Autonomous Data Science.** Autonomous data science has long been pursued as an important goal of intelligent systems. Existing LLM-based data science methods can be categorized into: domain-specific LLMs and workflow-based agents. To handle individual tasks in data science, early methods focused on fine-tuning LLMs into domain-specific models, including LLMs for data science code generation (Nascimento et al., 2024; Wen et al., 2024; Nejjar et al., 2024; Pan et al., 2025), tabular LLMs (Li et al., 2023b; Fang et al., 2024; Zhang et al., 2025c; Xu et al., 2025; Ouyang et al., 2025; Lei et al., 2025), and database-oriented LLMs (Xue et al., 2024; Liu et al., 2024; Mohammadjafari et al., 2025). Recently, an increasing number of data agents have demonstrated promising performance in data science by leveraging workflows to gradually prompt LLMs for complex tasks (Hollmann et al., 2023; Guo et al., 2024; Yang et al., 2024; Sun et al., 2025a; Hong et al., 2025). Most existing agents are built upon Chain-of-Thought frameworks, including ReAct (Yao et al., 2023), AutoGen (Wu et al., 2024), and self-reflection (Pan et al., 2023), which decompose complex tasks into multiple subtasks and solve them sequentially. Regardless of workflow design, existing agents primarily rely on carefully crafted prompting to guide closed-source LLMs in performing data science tasks. + +Despite these advances, domain-specific LLMs (focused on individual tasks) and workflow-based agents (dependent on manually designed workflows) remain incapable of fully autonomous data science. Therefore, the proposed DeepAnalyze does not rely on prompting frameworks or predefined workflows, instead, it internalizes data science capabilities through agentic training within real-world environments. + +**Agentic Training for LLM.** Agentic training aims to enhance LLMs as agentic models through reinforcement learning and thereby enable LLMs to perform multi-step reasoning and interactions in real-world environments (Plaat et al., 2025), which has already achieved practical success in coding (Sapkota et al., 2025b) and searching (Zheng et al., 2025; Li et al., 2025; Jin et al., 2025). Typically, these methods use prompts to control the interaction format of LLMs and complete RL with the accuracy of the final answer as the reward. Based on this, lightweight cold-start is proposed to help LLMs learn the interaction format (DeepSeek-AI, 2025), improving the initial state for RL training. Existing training methods mainly focus on reasoning ability, while + +--- end of page.page_number=3 --- + +**==> picture [484 x 255] intentionally omitted <==** + +**----- Start of picture text -----**
+Data Science Tasks
Data Preparation Data Analysis Data Modeling Visualization Data Insight Report Generation
Learning Path of Human Versatile Data:
Basic Analyze Understand Data-centric Instruction:
Abilities Code Capabilities Give me a comprehensive data analysis report based on these files.Requirements: (1)…(2)…
Beginner Practitioner Data Scientist Response: To complete this task, I need to (1) load the data, Intermediate Results
(2) observe its structure, (3) select a statistical
Curriculum-based Agentic Training of DeepAnalyze model, … (8) finally generate an analysis report.Next, I will first look at the data. Processed Data

Single-ability Data-centric Reasoning Fine-tuning Multi-ability Data-orientedPipeline Agentic RL ```python importdf = pd.read_csv(print(``` "=== First 5 Rows ===\n" pandas as pd 'data.csv’) , df.head()) … Statistical Analysis
Structural Data Open-ended
Understanding Data Research
LLM GenerationCode Data-orientedLLM Report Generation === First 5 Rows ===Name AgeBob 23 Salary6,000 DepartmentMarketing … Data Insight
… …

Through the execution results, I know the csv file
is about …, it has 4 columns… Visualization
AgenticTrajectory Trajectory SynthesisReasoning Distillation Refinement Trajectory SynthesisInteraction Questioner Files InstructionCode Solver ExecuteUnderstandAnalyze ………
Synthesis Existing Datasets SOTA LLMs Data in Environment Environment # Analysis Report of Data:… Data Modeling
Real-world Shell : Python Pandas SQL Pytorch Scikit-learn Matplotlib Seaborn …
Environments Files : Data1.txt Data2.csv Data3.xlsx Data4.db Data5.sqlite Data6.json Data7.md …
**----- End of picture text -----**
+ + +_Figure 3._ Architecture of DeepAnalyze. + +data science requires a broader range of abilities, such as reasoning, structured data understanding, and code generation. This complexity makes that initial LLMs (even after coldstart format learning) are generally incapable of completing complex data science tasks, leading to challanges of reward sparsity and trajectory scarcity. To this end, we propose a curriculum-based agentic training that enables LLMs to gradually acquire complex data science skills through a progression from single to multiple abilities, while employing data-grounded trajectory synthesis to generate high-quality reasoning and interaction trajectories for training. + +## **3. DeepAnalyze** + +In this paper, we introduce DeepAnalyze, an agentic large language model for autonomous data science. To endow the LLM with the capability for autonomous orchestration and adaptive optimization in real-world environments, we propose a curriculum-based agentic training and data-grounded trajectory synthesis framework tailored for complex tasks with multiple abilities. Specifically, inspired by the behavior of human data scientists, we first define a set of actions that enable DeepAnalyze to directly interact with the data in its environment. Building on this architecture, we automatically synthesize high-quality data science trajectories and introduce a curriculum-based agentic training paradigm that guides DeepAnalyze through a progression from a beginner to data scientist, thereby empowering DeepAnalyze to tackle a wide spectrum of data science tasks. The architecture, curriculum-based agentic training, and data-grounded + +trajectory synthesis are introduced as follows. + +## **3.1. Architecture** + +Unlike foundation LLMs that focus on understanding and generating natural language, LLMs for data science meet the additional challenge of understanding and interaction with structured data, which is typically stored in external files. Therefore, DeepAnalyze extends natural language interaction by introducing data-oriented interaction pattern, thereby enabling LLMs to autonomously interact with realworld environments. + +**Inputs Format.** Previous structured data–specific LLMs (Li et al., 2023b; Fang et al., 2024; Zhang et al., 2025c; Xu et al., 2025; Lei et al., 2025) often converted tables stored in databases, CSV, or XLSX files into unstructured Markdown text and fed them into the LLM’s context to enable structured data understanding. However, due to context length limitations, these methods can only handle small-scale data (e.g., very small tables). When human data scientists work with large-scale data, they do not passively read and memorize every record. Instead, they actively explore each data source as needed and then plan the following steps accordingly. To this end, DeepAnalyze integrates both modes: it passively accepts structured data expressed as text in the input, while also actively inspecting external data sources according to user inputs, where the filenames of the external data sources are specified in inputs, as shown in Figure 2. + +**Interaction Pattern.** Given an instruction and the data sources in the environment, data scientists typically analyze, + +--- end of page.page_number=4 --- + +**==> picture [486 x 179] intentionally omitted <==** + +**----- Start of picture text -----**
+Algorithm 1 Inference of DeepAnalyze Task Environments Reward 𝑟! 𝐴!
1:2: Input: Output: M Instruction Response Q A , Environment (with interaction process) Env , DeepAnalyze model Question-AnswerData-centric TaskOpen Research Policy LLM LLM-as-Judgement Rules AccInterpretabilityReadabilityCode AccUsefulness543210Interaction TurnsSoundnessRichness ...𝑟𝑟"# CompuGrouptation 𝐴𝐴..."#
3: Initialization: A = ∅ Cold Start Reference Model 𝑟$ 𝐴$
4: while ⟨ Answer ⟩ · · · ⟨ /Answer ⟩ not in A do KL
5: y ←M ( Q, A ) // generate next action based on the
instruction Q and current response A Figure 4. Schematic diagram of agentic RL.
6: A ← A + y
7: if ⟨ Code ⟩ · · · ⟨ /Code ⟩ in y then
8: code ← extract_code( y )
9: feedback ← Env .execute(code) // interaction with ties needed for entire data science pipeline and open-ended
the data in the environment research. The complexity of these capabilities results in
10: A ← A + ⟨ Execute ⟩ + feedback + ⟨ /Execute ⟩ the limited proficiency of foundation LLMs in data science
11: end if domains (Zhang et al., 2025b), leading to severe rewardZhang et al., 2025b), leading to severe reward, 2025b), leading to severe reward 2025b), leading to severe reward), leading to severe reward
12: end while sparsity on complex tasks and rendering existing agentic
13: Return A
**----- End of picture text -----**
+ + +ties needed for entire data science pipeline and open-ended research. The complexity of these capabilities results in the limited proficiency of foundation LLMs in data science domains (Zhang et al., 2025b), leading to severe rewardZhang et al., 2025b), leading to severe reward, 2025b), leading to severe reward 2025b), leading to severe reward), leading to severe reward sparsity on complex tasks and rendering existing agentic training (such as RL-Zero or RL with cold-start training (DeepSeek-AI, 2025)) ineffective due to the lack of positive feedback. To address this challenge, we propose curriculumbased agentic training, which emulates the learning path of human data scientists by gradually transitioning from mastering single abilities to integrating multiple abilities. This training framework consists of two stages, where stage 1 employs single-ability fine-tuning to strengthen the foundation LLM’s single ability, and stage 2 uses multi-ability agentic training to enable the LLM to apply multiple abilities in real-world environments to accomplish complex data science tasks. + +interact with the data in the environment, understand structured data, and iterate until the instruction is completed. To emulate this process, DeepAnalyze introduces five actions to automatically accomplish the data science task, including: + +- _⟨_ **Analyze** _⟩ · · · ⟨_ **/Analyze** _⟩_ : Analyze textually, including plan- + +- ning, reasoning, reflection, self-verification... + +- _⟨_ **Understand** _⟩ · · · ⟨_ **/Understand** _⟩_ : Understand the content of + +- data source, such as databases, tables, and documents. + +- _⟨_ **Code** _⟩ · · · ⟨_ **/Code** _⟩_ : Generate code to interact with the data + +- in the environment, using Python suited for data science. + +**Single-ability Fine-tuning.** Since most foundation LLMs have not been trained specifically for data science tasks, in this stage, we first enhance the various single abilities that data science relies, primarily including reasoning, structured data understanding, and code generation, which correspond respectively to the actions _⟨_ Analyze _⟩_ , _⟨_ Understand _⟩_ , and _⟨_ Code _⟩_ . Specifically, we fine-tune the foundation LLM using long CoT data (i.e., including reasoning traces) of general tasks, structured data understanding, code generation. This stage of training mirrors the human learning process from a beginner to a data science practitioner in acquiring specialized skills, enhancing LLM’s single ability in various aspects of data science. + +- _⟨_ **Execute** _⟩ · · · ⟨_ **/Execute** _⟩_ : Execute code and collect the feed- + +- back from the environment. + +- _⟨_ **Answer** _⟩ · · · ⟨_ **/Answer** _⟩_ : Produce the final output. + +In practice, we extend the vocabulary of the foundation LLM to support the generation of these special tokens. During the inference, DeepAnalyze automatically switches between different actions by generating these special tokens, as shown in the right side of Figure 3. In particular, once a _⟨_ **Code** _⟩ · · · ⟨_ **/Code** _⟩_ is generated, DeepAnalyze executes the code in the environment and places the feedback in _⟨_ **Execute** _⟩ · · · ⟨_ **/Execute** _⟩_ , and then generates the next action. The detailed inference process of DeepAnalyze is shown in Algorithm 1. With this architecture, all actions (i.e., special tokens) are autonomously generated by the model without any human-defined workflows or rules, which allows DeepAnalyze to fully autonomously orchestrate and optimize each action, laying the foundation for autonomous data science. + +**Multi-ability Agentic Training.** Building on the mastery of various single abilities, we employ agentic reinforcement learning to train DeepAnalyze to apply multiple abilities in real-world environments to complete complex data science tasks. To ensure the quality of reinforcement learning, we first perform a cold start by fine-tuning the LLM on synthesized interaction trajectories, enabling it to acquire basic capabilities in orchestrating and optimizing individual actions. Subsequently, we train DeepAnalyze in real-world environments using reinforcement learning with group relative policy optimization (GRPO) (Shao et al., 2024). For each question _q_ in training data _D_ , GRPO samples a group of _G_ outputs _{o_ 1 _, · · · , oG}_ from the old policy _πθ_ old and then optimizes the policy model _πθ_ by maximizing the fol- + +## **3.2. Curriculum-based Agentic Training** + +Under the above architecture, DeepAnalyze need to learn how to interact with the environment to accomplish various data science tasks. Unlike individual coding or searching task, data science tasks demand a broader and more complex set of abilities, ranging from reasoning, structured data understanding, and code generation to the composite abili- + +--- end of page.page_number=5 --- + +**==> picture [468 x 105] intentionally omitted <==** + +**----- Start of picture text -----**
+SOTA LLMsSOTA LLMs KK ey Reasoning Vocabulary Tasks Questioner Solver
Preparation
ButBut Let me checkLet me check Look at each row Analysis Give instruction Checklist ü Checklist üInteraction DetailsInteraction Details
Let’s revisit structuLet’s revisit structu red data Wait … Modeling… üüEnvironment ChangeEnvironment Change
Research
Observe environment Interaction
Reasoning TraceReasoning Trace Insert keInsert ke y reasoning words
Real-world Environment
DistillationDistillation Refinement Inspecto rr
(a) Reasoning Trajectory Synthesis (b) Interaction Trajectory Synthesis
**----- End of picture text -----**
+ + +_Figure 5._ The proposed data-grounded trajectory synthesis for the development of DeepAnalyze on data science tasks. + +lowing objective: + +**==> picture [229 x 92] intentionally omitted <==** + +where _Ai_ is the advantage calculated from the rewards _{r_ 1 _, · · · , rG}_ of outputs within each group, _π_ ref is the reference model, _ε_ and _β_ are hyperparameters. + +**Hybrid Reward Modeling.** The effectiveness of agentic reinforcement learning critically depends on both the training data and the reward function. We use the agentic interaction trajectories synthesized in Section 3.3 as training data, covering three broad categories of data science tasks: data question answering, specific data tasks (e.g., data preparation, analysis, visualization, modeling, and insight extraction), and open-ended research. Since many data science tasks are inherently open-ended, we adopt a hybrid reward modeling that combines rule-based rewards with LLM-as-a-judge rewards. For all tasks, we first check whether the output format conforms to DeepAnalyze’s architecture (i.e., whether it contains exactly five types of actions with the correct format). If the format is incorrect, we directly assign a reward of _R_ = _−_ 1. + +For data question answering and data-centric tasks, which have reference answers, the reward _R_ of each output _o_ are calculated using accuracy and interaction trajectory quality: + +**==> picture [189 x 24] intentionally omitted <==** + +where 1 _acc_ ( _o_ ) _∈{_ 0 _,_ 1 _}_ indicates whether the result is correct, and _Sinteraction_ ( _o_ ) _∈_ [0 _,_ 1] is a score to evaluate the quality of the interaction trajectory. + +For open-ended research, the reward _R_ of each output _o_ is evaluated based on the quality of the final research report and the research process. Denoting each interaction turn in + +output _o_ as _Ti ∈ o_ , the reward _R_ is calculate as: + +**==> picture [239 x 44] intentionally omitted <==** + +where _Sreport_ ( _o_ ) is the score that evaluates the generated report from five aspects: usefulness, richness, soundness, interpretability, and readability. _|T |_ measures the interaction turns with the environment, where _N[T]_ = 10 is a hyperparameter. 1 _success_ ( _Ti_ ) indicates whether each interaction turn is successful. This reward encourages DeepAnalyze to engage in more successful interactions with the environment and to generate high-quality research report. + +Through curriculum-based agentic training, we progressively enhances DeepAnalyze’s capabilities following an easy-to-hard schedule, ultimately enabling it to autonomously accomplish a variety of data science tasks in real-world environments. + +## **3.3. Data-grounded Trajectory Synthesis** + +The proposed curriculum-based agentic training relies on high-quality reasoning and interaction trajectory data, while such data is unfortunately scarce for data science tasks. To overcome this challange, we introduce a data-grounded trajectory synthesis framework that automatically constructs high-quality trajectory data tailored for data science tasks. The data-grounded trajectory synthesis framework consists of two parts: _Reasoning Trajectory Synthesis_ , which construct the reasoning trajectory for existing structured data instruction datasets, and _Interaction Trajectory Synthesis_ , which constructs entire data science trajectory based on structured data sources in the environment. + +**Reasoning Trajectory Synthesis.** Existing instruction datasets for structured data, such as TableQA (Li et al., 2023b; Lei et al., 2025), structured knowledge grounding (Zhuang et al., 2024), and data science code generation, is useful to improve LLM’s single capability. However, these datasets typically contain only instructions and responses, without the reasoning process. To address this limitation, + +--- end of page.page_number=6 --- + +**DeepAnalyze: Agentic Large Language Models for Autonomous Data Science** + +|**Models**|**Coarse-grained Metrics**
**Success**
**Rate**
**Completion**
**Rate**|**Fine-grained Metrics**
**Score**
**VLM**
**F1: Data**
**Preparation**
**F2: Plot**
**Validity**
**F3: Data**
**Exploration**
**F4: Data**
**Visualization**
**F5: Data**
**Modeling**| +|---|---|---| +||**_Close-Source API-Based Agent_**|| +|**o1-mini**
**GPT-4o-mini**
**GPT-4o**
**GPT-4-Turbo**
**Claude-3-5-Sonnet**
**GLM-4-Flash**|29.77
45.26
2.87
44.63
19.27
36.01
30.94
23.81
38.78
50.63
57.78
3.05
60.30
48.02
57.84
59.24
53.54
54.18
**66.31**
**68.44**
**3.91**
**75.93**
**56.14**
**69.33**
**71.35**
**57.67**
**64.51**
51.93
58.87
3.09
62.30
41.62
57.75
60.25
50.75
54.65
47.48
58.11
2.14
49.07
36.94
55.84
52.87
46.04
52.29
30.32
34.04
1.33
36.53
29.42
32.57
27.64
14.44
30.74|| +||**_Open-Source LLM-based Agent_**|| +|**Llama-3.1-8B-Instruct**
**Gemma-2-9B-it**
**GLM-4-9B-Chat**
**Qwen2.5-7B-Instruct**
**Qwen2-7B-Instruct**
**Yi-1.5-9B-Chat-16K**
**CodeLlama-13B-Instruct**
**CodeLlama-7B-Instruct**
**StarCoder2-15B**
**Deepseek-Coder-6.7B-instruct**
**Qwen2.5-Coder-7B-Instruct**|24.73
33.89
1.29
38.24
18.25
21.98
22.89
25.85
29.69
7.07
11.00
1.06
26.16
16.90
23.81
18.11
17.15
12.66
25.72
30.38
1.69
31.51
23.15
28.07
27.19
19.14
27.57
43.83
50.74
1.43
51.18
36.41
47.25
45.24
34.77
45.99
22.84
25.58
1.16
30.93
20.78
28.73
25.87
7.52
23.52
38.20
42.35
0.73
38.14
36.36
35.64
37.08
27.79
38.22
10.49
14.64
0.04
11.67
11.34
9.43
14.43
5.15
12.64
2.88
3.97
0.00
3.53
2.37
2.57
1.74
1.59
3.31
2.07
2.61
0.07
2.57
1.81
1.59
3.43
1.19
2.33
37.03
41.62
1.93
43.49
34.57
46.36
46.49
18.09
38.45
45.18
53.11
1.48
51.58
43.21
43.87
42.50
**35.23**
47.67|| +||**_Agentic Model_**|| +|**DeepAnalyze-8B**|**59.91**
**66.24**
**2.86**
**71.68**
**67.86**
**58.62**
**69.09**
33.33
**61.11**|| + + + +_Table 1._ Performance on DataSciBench. ‘Success Rate’ and ‘Completion Rate’ are pass rate and accuracy. ‘VLM’ and ‘F1-F5’ scores evaluate performance on various fine-grained data science sub-tasks, ‘Score’ denotes the overall performance. + +we enhance existing datasets by synthesizing complex and refined reasoning trajectories, which are used for DeepAnalyze’s single ability training. + +As shown in Figure 5(a), given the instruction–response pairs in the original dataset, the reasoning trajectory synthesis involves distillation and refinement steps. In the distillation step, we employ advanced LLMs as teacher models to extract their reasoning trajectories, whose correctness is verified by comparing the generated responses with the ground truth responses (DeepSeek-AI, 2025). To strengthen the model’s understanding of structured data, the distilled reasoning is reformulated by advanced LLMs into two complementary components: _⟨_ Analyze _⟩_ (reasoning process) and _⟨_ Understand _⟩_ (structured data understanding). Building on this, we introduce keyword-guided refinement to further enhance the reasoning trajectories with a focus on structured data. Previous works have shown that certain keywords, such as “but”/“wait”, play a crucial role in reasoning (Zhang et al., 2025a; Shen et al., 2025). Following this insight, we construct a key reasoning vocabulary and sample key reasoning words to insert into the reasoning trajectory, thereby improving its reasoning on structured data. Appendix B provides an example of keyword-guided refinement, where inserting keywords enhances the reasoning process by focusing more on the data, thereby improving the quality of the reasoning trajectory. Through reasoning trajectory synthesis, we can effectively leverage existing datasets to improve DeepAnalyze’s single ability in reasoning, structured data understanding, and code generation. + +**==> picture [295 x 157] intentionally omitted <==** + +**==> picture [165 x 9] intentionally omitted <==** + +**----- Start of picture text -----**
+Figure 6. Length distribution of training data.
**----- End of picture text -----**
+ + +**Interaction Trajectory Synthesis.** To enable DeepAnalyze to autonomously orchestrate and optimize multiple abilities in real-world environments, it is essential to construct multi-turn interaction trajectory data with the environment, yet such data is extremely scarce. In contrast, NL2SQL datasets such as Spider (Yu et al., 2018) and BIRD (Li et al., 2024) provide abundant structured data sources. To bridge this gap, we develop a multi-agent system to synthesize data science interaction trajectories from these data sources. + +The multi-agent system involves three roles: questioner, solver, and inspector. The questioner observes the data sources in the environment and accordingly formulates a data science problem, conditioned on a sampled task type (e.g., data preparation, data analysis, data modeling, data insight, or open-ended research). Simultaneously, the ques- + +--- end of page.page_number=7 --- + +tioner produces a checklist that serves as the evaluation criterion, including interaction-level constraints (e.g., number of turns, code library) and environment-level constraints (e.g., whether new files are generated, detailed file name). Given the data science problem and the data sources, the solver interacts with the environment using the introduced five actions to complete the task. Finally, the inspector validates the trajectory by checking the interaction process and environmental changes against the checklist, determining whether the trajectory should be accepted. Importantly, filtering trajectories based on both interaction details and environmental changes substantially improves the quality of synthesized data. Through interaction trajectory synthesis, the high-quality multi-turn interaction data can be used for multi-ability agentic training (cold start and RL). + +## **3.4. DataScience-Instruct-500K** + +We develop DeepAnalyze based on the constructed data in Sec.3.3. During the single-ability fine-tuning stage, we employ the reasoning trajectories built for data science, along with 100K general reasoning samples from AM-DeepSeekR1-0528-Distilled[1] . In the multi-ability agentic training stage (including both cold start and RL phases), we use the interaction trajectories constructed for data science. + +Figure 6 illustrates the length distribution of training data in both stages, with a sequence length of 8K in the first stage and 32K in the second. In terms of scale, the single-ability fine-tuning stage consists of approximately 470K samples, the cold-start phase of multiability training includes 20K samples, and the RL phase comprises 15K samples, resulting in a total of around 500K samples. We release all training data, named DataScience-Instruct-500K[2] , which can be used to train LLMs for data science tasks. + +## **4. Experiments** + +## **4.1. Benchmarks** + +We conduct experiments on 12 data science benchmarks. + +**DataSciBench** (Zhang et al., 2025b) is the latest benchmark to evaluate LLM’s capabilities on the entire data science pipeline, covering data preparation, data analysis, data modeling, data visualizatoin, and data insight. + +**DSBench** (Jing et al., 2025) evaluates data analysis and modeling capabilities, comprising 540 real-world tasks collected from ModelOff and Kaggle competitions. + +> 1https://huggingface.co/datasets/ a-m-team/AM-DeepSeek-R1-0528-Distilled + +> 2https://huggingface.co/datasets/ RUC-DataLab/DataScience-Instruct-500K + +**==> picture [235 x 165] intentionally omitted <==** + +_Figure 7._ Performance on DSBench (data analysis). + +**DABStep** (Egg et al., 2025) is a data agent benchmark with 450 real-world data analysis tasks designed to evaluate the multi-step reasoning abilities of agents. + +**DABStep-Research** is a benchmark we constructed based on DABStep (Egg et al., 2025) to evaluate the capability of data science report generation. Considering that existing data science benchmarks rarely assess deep research abilities on structured data, we propose DABStep-Research to measure the capability to generate comprehensive data research reports from raw data sources. The evaluation covers five aspect: data preparation, data analysis, data insight, report generation, and open-ended data research. Please refer to Appendix A for details on its construction and cases. + +**DS-1000** (Lai et al., 2023) is a code generation benchmark containing 1000 data science problems spanning seven Python libraries such as NumPy, Pandas, Matplotlib, etc. + +**TableQA Benchmarks** are a series of question-answering benchmarks based on structured tables, including WikiTQ (Pasupat & Liang, 2015), HybridQA (Chen et al., 2020), MultiHiertt (Zhao et al., 2022), OTT-QA (Chen et al., 2021a), FinQA (Chen et al., 2021b), TAT-QA (Nan et al., 2022), and HiTab (Cheng et al., 2022). + +## **4.2. Experimental Setup** + +We build DeepAnalyze-8B based on DeepSeek-R1-0528Qwen3-8B[3] as the foundation LLM. We use ms-swift (Zhao et al., 2024) and SkyRL (Liu et al., 2025) toolkit to accomplish single-ability fine-tuning and multi-ability agentic training respectively. The training data come from DataScience-Instruct-500K, as described in Sec.3.4. During inference, we employ the vLLM engine (Kwon et al., 2023) to deploy DeepAnalyze-8B for efficiency. All training and inference are conducted on NVIDIA A800 GPUs. + +> 3https://huggingface.co/deepseek-ai/ DeepSeek-R1-0528-Qwen3-8B + +--- end of page.page_number=8 --- + +**DeepAnalyze: Agentic Large Language Models for Autonomous Data Science** + +|**Methods**
**LLM**
**Success (%)**
**Performance**
**Cost ($)**
**_Workfow-based Agent_**
**AutoGen**
Llama3-8b
5.41
1.55
0.00
Llama3-70b
16.22
7.79
0.00
GPT-3.5
8.11
6.02
0.41
GPT-4
87.84
**45.52**
19.34
GPT-4o
71.62
34.74
12.27
GPT-4o-mini
22.97
11.24
0.10
**Code**
**Interpreter**
GPT-3.5
16.22
6.52
2.74
GPT-4
54.05
26.14
38.81
GPT-4o
44.59
19.87
19.26
GPT-4o-mini
39.19
16.90
2.70
**_Agentic Model_**
**DeepAnalyze-8B**
**90.63**
39.41
**0.00**
_Table 2._ Performance on DSBench (data modeling).
**4.3. Main Results**
**Capability on End-to-end Data Science Pipeline.**
We|**Methods**
**LLM**
**Easy Level**
**(72 Cases)**
**Hard Level**
**(378 Cases)**
**Overall**
**(450 Cases)**| +|---|---| +||**_Workfow-based Agent_**| +||**ReAct**
Llama-4-Scout
52.78
1.85
10.00
Qwen3-Coder
54.17
3.44
11.56
GPT-4o-mini
69.44
3.44
14.00
Deepseek-v3
66.67
5.56
15.34
GPT-4o
66.67
6.08
15.77
Claude-3.5-Haiku
77.78
5.03
16.67
Llama-4-Maverick
75.00
8.73
19.33
GPT-4.1-mini
77.78
8.99
20.00
Claude-3.5-Sonnet
77.78
9.26
20.22
GPT-4.1
80.56
12.43
23.33| +||**Reasoning**
**Prompt**
o1
69.44
11.11
20.44
Gemini-2.5-Pro
66.67
12.70
21.34
o3-mini
72.22
13.76
23.11
o4-mini
76.39
14.55
24.44| +||**DS-Agent**
Gemini-2.0-Flash
61.11
9.79
18.00
**Open Data Scientist**
Deepseek-v3
**84.72**
16.40
27.33
**I2I-Agent**
Claude-3.5-Sonnet
80.56
28.04
36.44| +||**_Agentic Model_**| +||**DeepAnalyze-8B**
70.83
**32.80**
**38.88**| + + + +## **4.3. Main Results** + +**Capability on End-to-end Data Science Pipeline.** We evaluate DeepAnalyze on DataSciBench to assess its _end-toend data science capabilities_ , where each problem involves one or more sub-tasks such as data preparation, analysis, modeling, and visualization. We compare DeepAnalyze-8B with several workflow-based (ReAct) agents, covering 17 open-source and advanced proprietary LLMs. As shown in Table 1, coarse-grained metrics measure task success and sub-task completion rates, while fine-grained metrics evaluate detailed performance across individual stages of the data science pipeline. The results show that, despite having only 8B parameters, DeepAnalyze-8B achieves state-of-the-art performance among open-source LLM-based agents and even outperforms most advanced proprietary models (e.g., GPT-4-Turbo, GPT-4o-mini, Claude 3.5 Sonnet), ranking second only to GPT-4o. More importantly, unlike existing workflow-based agents, DeepAnalyze-8B accomplishes high-quality, end-to-end pipelines without relying on external orchestration frameworks such as ReAct. Prior studies have shown that models like o1-mini exhibit strong reasoning ability but often fail to execute complex data science tasks requiring precise instruction following and strategic planning (Zhang et al., 2025b). In contrast, DeepAnalyze benefits from agentic training, enabling autonomous orchestration and adaptive optimization in real-world environments, resulting in consistently superior performance. + +_Table 3._ Performance on DABStep benchmark. + +adaptive optimization are more effective than the manually designed workflows used in agents such as Code Interpreter, Master-Slave (Kong et al., 2017), and Blackboard (Salemi et al., 2025). We then evaluate its _data modeling_ capabilities. Table 2 reports the results on DSBench, where tasks involve training machine learning models (Jing et al., 2025). DeepAnalyze-8B achieves performance comparable to AutoGen-based workflows (Wu et al., 2024) built upon various advanced proprietary LLMs. Although it has fewer parameters and weaker single-turn reasoning ability, DeepAnalyze-8B can autonomously optimize its actions through environment feedback, achieving a high task success rate and strong overall performance. + +To further evaluate DeepAnalyze’s ability to perform data analysis across multiple data types, including structured, semi-structured, and unstructured data (Egg et al., 2025), we evaluate it on DABStep, which contains diverse data formats such as markdown, CSV, and JSON. As shown in Table 3, DeepAnalyze-8B outperforms previous workflowbased agents, including ReAct (Yao et al., 2023), reasoning prompts, and specially designed workflows, particularly on hard-level tasks. While workflow-based systems can leverage the strong general capabilities of proprietary LLMs to perform well on easy tasks, their predefined workflows limit performance on complex scenarios. In contrast, DeepAnalyze, equipped with autonomous orchestration and adaptive optimization through agentic training, can iteratively interact with the environment like a human data scientist, achieving superior performance on complex tasks requiring long-chain reasoning. + +Overall, DeepAnalyze-8B’s strong results on DataSciBench highlight its advanced problem-solving capabilities in autonomously orchestrating end-to-end data science pipelines. + +**Capability on Individual Data Science Tasks.** As most previous studies primarily focus on individual data science tasks such as data analysis and modeling, we further evaluate DeepAnalyze on these tasks using DSBench for a fair comparison. We first evaluate its _statistical data analysis_ capabilities. As shown in Figure 7, DeepAnalyze-8B outperforms previous LLM prompting and workflow-based agents, demonstrating that its autonomous orchestration and + +**Capability on Data-Oriented Deep Research.** Deep research has emerged as an important task for evaluating the comprehensive capabilities of LLMs and agents. To this end, + +--- end of page.page_number=9 --- + +**==> picture [487 x 126] intentionally omitted <==** + +**----- Start of picture text -----**
+Figure 8. Performance on DABStep-Research.
**----- End of picture text -----**
+ + +|**Models**|**WikiTQ**|**HybridQA**|**MultiHiertt**|**OTT-QA**|**FinQA**|**TAT-QA**|**HiTab**|**AVG**| +|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---| +|||**API-based LLMs**||||||| +|**Claude**|82.02|39.36|40.98|62.69|57.45|53.09|75.96|58.79| +|**GPT-4o**|81.19|39.30|40.86|66.35|57.63|53.45|73.92|58.96| +|||**Open-Source LLMs**||||||| +|**DeepSeek-R1-0528**|**84.00**|39.04|40.98|66.85|59.90|55.24|75.57|60.22| +|**TableGPT2-7B**|63.70|30.03|25.12|48.87|38.36|55.12|63.89|46.44| +|**Qwen2.5-32B-Inst**|79.65|38.20|37.74|56.50|59.20|67.29|73.29|58.84| +|**Qwen2.5-7B-Inst**|57.27|31.84|27.54|50.50|52.40|49.79|57.19|46.65| +|**DeepSeek-R1-0528-Qwen3-8B**|63.49|28.15|39.86|49.72|51.09|55.00|51.09|48.34| +|**Reasoning-Table (SFT)**|72.35|35.17|38.50|54.40|60.42|63.45|72.72|56.72| +|**Reasoning-Table (SFT+RL)**|75.46|42.83|39.56|**68.68**|**64.46**|**73.75**|73.61|62.62| +|**DeepAnalyze-8B (single-ability)**|81.86|39.27|44.58|53.12|62.50|66.87|76.26|60.64| +|**DeepAnalyze-8B**|83.24|**42.95**|**48.29**|64.73|63.30|70.64|**78.16**|**64.47**| + + + +_Table 4._ Performance on TableQA benchmarks. ‘DeepAnalyze-8B (single-ability)’ is the model after the first stage fine-tuning. + +we introduce DABStep-Research, a benchmark designed to evaluate the _data-oriented deep research_ capabilities of LLMs and agents. We compare DeepAnalyze-8B with advanced agent systems (i.e., state-of-the-art proprietary LLMs with tool-calling capabilities) on a suite of data research tasks spanning five categories: data preparation, data analysis, data insight, report generation (with a specified outline), and open-ended data research (fully unconstrained). Each task results in a research report, which is evaluated on both content quality and formatting. Figure 9 illustrates several representative cases from DABStep-Research. + +The results in Figure 8 show that DeepAnalyze-8B consistently outperforms all compared systems across every task. Notably, agent systems built on proprietary LLMs with tool calls exhibit a significant performance drop on open-ended data research tasks compared to more instructive tasks, such as data preparation, analysis, and insight, where explicit steps or goals are provided. This decline stems from their lack of training in data science: without step-by-step guidance, they fail to perform autonomous orchestration and adaptive optimization. In contrast, DeepAnalyze-8B, trained in real-world environments, effectively handles fully openended data research tasks without predefined instructions. Moreover, it achieves a clear advantage in report format quality, generating outputs that closely resemble analystgrade reports. This improvement is attributed to reward + +modeling that explicitly incorporates report quality during RL training. Appendix C further provides qualitative comparisons of research reports generated by DeepAnalyze-8B and reasoning models such as DeepSeek-R1 and o3-mini, highlighting DeepAnalyze-8B’s superior content depth and structured presentation. + +Overall, DeepAnalyze-8B enables end-to-end autonomous data research, from raw data to analyst-grade reports, unlocking novel applications in data research. + +**Capability Related to Data Science.** Beside data science tasks, we further evaluate DeepAnalyze-8B on DS-1000 and TableQA to evaluate its capabilities in code generation and structured data understanding, which are essential for complex data science. As reported in Table 5 and Table 4, DeepAnalyze-8B outperforms GPT-4-Turbo and GLM-4.5 (GLM-4.5-Team, 2025) on DS-1000, and surpasses the previous SOTA model Reasoning-Table (Lei et al., 2025) on TableQA. Compared with DeepSeek-R1-0528-Qwen3-8B, DeepAnalyze-8B achieves substantial gains in both abilities under the single-ability setting, demonstrating the effectiveness of the first-stage single-ability fine-tuning. Furthermore, agentic training on complex data science tasks further strengthens these specialized capabilities. + +Overall, DeepAnalyze-8B’s strong performance on code generation and structured data understanding establishes a + +--- end of page.page_number=10 --- + +**DeepAnalyze: Agentic Large Language Models for Autonomous Data Science** + +|**Models**|**Data Science Libraries**
**Overall**
**Pandas**
**NumPy**
**Matplotlib**
**Scikit-learn**
**SciPy**
**TensorFlow**
**PyTorch**| +|---|---| +|**Codex002**
**GPT-3.5-turbo**
**GPT-4**
**GPT-4-turbo**
**Kimi-K2-Instruct**_∗_
**GLM-4.5**_∗_
**LIMI**_∗_
**DeepSeek-R1-0528-Qwen3-8B**|26.5
43.2
54.8
43.5
34.9
37.8
39.7
38.8
33.0
36.8
58.7
35.7
39.6
33.3
29.4
38.6
41.9
56.8
65.2
50.4
48.1
46.7
47.1
51.0
42.3
61.8
**71.6**
50.4
50.0
53.3
50.0
53.9
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
40.2
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
53.2
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
54.8
17.5
37.3
52.9
27.8
21.7
31.1
29.4
30.4| +|**DeepAnalyze-8B (single-ability)**
**DeepAnalyze-8B**|43.6
69.1
54.8
53.0
50.9
64.4
58.8
54.8
**50.2**
**74.5**
67.7
**56.5**
**54.7**
**68.9**
**70.6**
**61.7**| + + + +_Table 5._ Performance on DS-1000. _[∗]_ indicates that The results are derived from corresponding references. ‘DeepAnalyze-8B (singleability)’ is the model after the first stage fine-tuning. + +|**Models**|**WikiTQ**|**MultiHiertt**|**DS-1000**|**DABStep**| +|---|---|---|---|---| +|**DeepAnalyze**|83.24|48.29|61.70|38.88| +|**- w/o**_ ⟨_**Understand**_⟩_|80.78|45.43|61.20|31.78| + + + +_Table 6._ Ablation study on _⟨_ Understand _⟩_ action. + +|**Training Methods**
**Curriculum-based Agentic Training**
**-Only Single-ability Fine-tuning**|**WikiTQ **
**83.24**
81.86|** MultiHiertt **
**48.29**
44.58|** DS-1000 **
**61.70**
54.80|** DABStep**
**38.88**
15.34| +|---|---|---|---|---| +|**-Only Multi-ability Agentic Training**|80.32|43.29|53.20|30.66| +|**-One-stage Training**|82.13|46.23|54.80|36.89| + + + +_Table 7._ Ablation study on the curriculum-based agentic training. + +robust foundation for its advanced performance in end-toend autonomous data science. + +## **5. Analysis** + +## **5.1. Ablation on DeepAnalyze’s Actions** + +DeepAnalyze introduces five actions for autonomous data science, among which _⟨_ Understand _⟩_ is specifically designed for structured data understanding. To evaluate the effect of incorporating _⟨_ Understand _⟩_ independently from reasoning process (i.e., _⟨_ Analyze _⟩_ ), we conduct an ablation study, as reported in Table 6. The results show that removing _⟨_ Understand _⟩_ leads to performance drops on structured data understanding tasks (WikiTQ, MultiHiertt) as well as data analysis tasks (DABStep), demonstrating the advantage of introducing _⟨_ Understand _⟩_ in DeepAnalyze. + +## **5.2. Superiority of Curriculum-based Agentic Training** + +To address the challenges arising from the multiple ability requirements in data science, we introduce curriculum-based agentic training, inspired by the learning path of human data scientists, where first fine-tuning on single abilities and then agentic training on complex tasks that require multiple abilities. To evaluate its effectiveness, we compare several training methods, including “Only Single-ability Fine-tuning”, “Only Multi-ability Agentic Training”, and “One-stage Training”, which directly mix the single-ability + +|**Reasoning Trajectory**|**WikiTQ**|**HybridQA**|** MultiHiertt**|**HiTab**| +|---|---|---|---|---| +|**Original**|75.54|34.42|39.29|72.95| +|**+ Distillation**|78.80|36.12|41.24|74.44| +|**+ Distillation + Refnement**|**80.25**|**38.84**|**43.47**|**75.86**| + + + +_Table 8._ Performance under various reasoning trajectory synthesis. + +data into the cold-start of multi-ability agentic training (i.e., the conventional agentic training methods). + +As shown in Table 7, “Only Single-ability Fine-tuning” fails to handle complex tasks in DABStep that require multi-turn interaction with the environment, and “Only Multi-ability Agentic Training” struggles to achieve strong performance when single ability are not well established. Compared with “One-stage Training”, a scheduled training process from simple (single-ability) to complex (multi-ability) proves more beneficial for model performance using the same data. Therefore, for tasks that rely on multiple abilities, curriculum-based agentic training effectively enhances overall model performance. + +## **5.3. Advantage of Reasoning Trajectory Synthesis** + +During data synthesis, we propose reasoning trajectory synthesis that incorporates distillation and refinement to enhance the model’s reasoning ability over structured data. To validate its effectiveness, we compare the model’s performance when trained on original, distilled, and refined data, where the original data are derived from Reasoning-Table. As reported in Table 1, both distillation and refinement improve the model’s understanding of structured data. In particular, compared with commonly used distillation methods, we additionally introduce a refinement stage, which incorporates key reasoning vocabulary to strengthen the reasoning trajectory’s focus on structured data, thereby improving the overall data quality. + +## **6. Conclusion and Future Work** + +DeepAnalyze brings a major leap forward in autonomous data science, demonstrating unprecedented capabilities + +--- end of page.page_number=11 --- + +across a wide spectrum of data-centric tasks. Powered by curriculum-based agentic training and data-grounded trajectory synthesis, _DeepAnalyze-8B outperforms state-ofthe-art closed-source LLMs on 12 data science benchmarks_ . + +More importantly, DeepAnalyze goes beyond predefined workflows, as it enables open-ended data research and generates analyst-grade reports, advancing a long-standing goal of the data science community: automatically extracting actionable insights from raw data. As a result, this work marks _a paradigm shift_ in autonomous data science from workflow-based agents to agentic models, paving the way for the next generation of intelligent data systems in areas such as data discovery, data governance, data ecosystems, and data management. + +## **References** + +- Chen, W., Zha, H., Chen, Z., Xiong, W., Wang, H., and Wang, W. Y. HybridQA: A dataset of multi-hop question answering over tabular and textual data. In Cohn, T., He, Y., and Liu, Y. (eds.), _Findings of the Association for Computational Linguistics: EMNLP 2020_ , pp. 1026–1036, Online, November 2020. Association for Computational Linguistics. doi: 10.18653/v1/2020. findings-emnlp.91. URL https://aclanthology. org/2020.findings-emnlp.91/. + +- Chen, W., Chang, M.-W., Schlinger, E., Wang, W. Y., and Cohen, W. W. Open question answering over tables and text. In _International Conference on Learning Representations_ , 2021a. URL https://openreview.net/ forum?id=MmCRswl1UYl. + +- Chen, Z., Chen, W., Smiley, C., Shah, S., Borova, I., Langdon, D., Moussa, R., Beane, M., Huang, T.H., Routledge, B., and Wang, W. Y. FinQA: A dataset of numerical reasoning over financial data. In Moens, M.-F., Huang, X., Specia, L., and Yih, S. W.t. (eds.), _Proceedings of the 2021 Conference on Empirical Methods in Natural Language Processing_ , pp. 3697–3711, Online and Punta Cana, Dominican Republic, November 2021b. Association for Computational Linguistics. doi: 10.18653/v1/2021.emnlp-main. 300. URL https://aclanthology.org/2021. emnlp-main.300/. + +- Cheng, Z., Dong, H., Wang, Z., Jia, R., Guo, J., Gao, Y., Han, S., Lou, J.-G., and Zhang, D. HiTab: A hierarchical table dataset for question answering and natural language generation. In Muresan, S., Nakov, P., and Villavicencio, A. (eds.), _Proceedings of the 60th Annual Meeting of the Association for Computational Linguistics (Volume 1: Long Papers)_ , pp. 1094–1110, Dublin, Ireland, May 2022. Association for Computational Linguis- + +- tics. doi: 10.18653/v1/2022.acl-long.78. URL https: //aclanthology.org/2022.acl-long.78/. + +- De Bie, T., De Raedt, L., Hernández-Orallo, J., Hoos, H. H., Smyth, P., and Williams, C. K. Automating data science. _Communications of the ACM_ , 65(3):76–87, 2022. + +- DeepSeek-AI. Deepseek-r1: Incentivizing reasoning capability in llms via reinforcement learning, 2025. URL https://arxiv.org/abs/2501.12948. + +- Egg, A., Goyanes, M. I., Kingma, F., Mora, A., von Werra, L., and Wolf, T. Dabstep: Data agent benchmark for multi-step reasoning, 2025. URL https://arxiv. org/abs/2506.23719. + +- Fang, X., Xu, W., Tan, F. A., Hu, Z., Zhang, J., Qi, Y., Sengamedu, S. H., and Faloutsos, C. Large language models (LLMs) on tabular data: Prediction, generation, and understanding - a survey. _Transactions on Machine Learning Research_ , 2024. ISSN 2835-8856. URL https: //openreview.net/forum?id=IZnrCGF9WI. + +- GLM-4.5-Team. Glm-4.5: Agentic, reasoning, and coding (arc) foundation models, 2025. URL https://arxiv. org/abs/2508.06471. + +- Guo, S., Deng, C., Wen, Y., Chen, H., Chang, Y., and Wang, J. Ds-agent: Automated data science by empowering large language models with case-based reasoning. In _ICML_ , 2024. URL https://openreview.net/ forum?id=LfJgeBNCFI. + +- Hollmann, N., Müller, S., and Hutter, F. Large language models for automated data science: Introducing caafe for context-aware automated feature engineering. In Oh, A., Naumann, T., Globerson, A., Saenko, K., Hardt, M., and Levine, S. (eds.), _Advances in Neural Information Processing Systems_ , volume 36, pp. 44753–44775. Curran Associates, Inc., 2023. + +- Hong, S., Lin, Y., Liu, B., Liu, B., Wu, B., Zhang, C., Wei, C., Li, D., Chen, J., Zhang, J., Wang, J., Zhang, L., Zhang, L., Yang, M., Zhuge, M., Guo, T., Zhou, T., Tao, W., Tang, X., Lu, X., Zheng, X., Liang, X., Fei, Y., Cheng, Y., Gou, Z., Xu, Z., and Wu, C. Data interpreter: An llm agent for data science, 2024. URL https://arxiv.org/ abs/2402.18679. + +- Hong, S., Lin, Y., Liu, B., Liu, B., Wu, B., Zhang, C., Li, D., Chen, J., Zhang, J., Wang, J., Zhang, L., Zhang, L., Yang, M., Zhuge, M., Guo, T., Zhou, T., Tao, W., Tang, R., Lu, X., Zheng, X., Liang, X., Fei, Y., Cheng, Y., Ni, Y., Gou, Z., Xu, Z., Luo, Y., and Wu, C. Data interpreter: An LLM agent for data science. In Che, W., Nabende, J., Shutova, E., and Pilehvar, M. T. (eds.), _Findings of the Association for Computational Linguistics: ACL 2025_ , pp. 19796–19821, Vienna, Austria, July + +--- end of page.page_number=12 --- + +2025. Association for Computational Linguistics. ISBN 979-8-89176-256-5. doi: 10.18653/v1/2025.findings-acl. 1016. URL https://aclanthology.org/2025. findings-acl.1016/. + +- Jiang, J., Zhou, K., Dong, Z., Ye, K., Zhao, X., and Wen, J.-R. StructGPT: A general framework for large language model to reason over structured data. In Bouamor, H., Pino, J., and Bali, K. (eds.), _Proceedings of the 2023 Conference on Empirical Methods in Natural Language Processing_ , pp. 9237–9251, Singapore, December 2023. Association for Computational Linguistics. doi: 10.18653/v1/2023.emnlp-main. 574. URL https://aclanthology.org/2023. emnlp-main.574/. + +- Jin, B., Zeng, H., Yue, Z., Yoon, J., Arik, S., Wang, D., Zamani, H., and Han, J. Search-r1: Training llms to reason and leverage search engines with reinforcement learning, 2025. URL https://arxiv.org/abs/ 2503.09516. + +- Jing, L., Huang, Z., Wang, X., Yao, W., Yu, W., Ma, K., Zhang, H., Du, X., and Yu, D. DSBench: How far are data science agents from becoming data science experts? In _The Thirteenth International Conference on Learning Representations_ , 2025. URL https://openreview. net/forum?id=DSsSPr0RZJ. + +- Kong, X., Xin, B., Liu, F., and Wang, Y. Revisiting the master-slave architecture in multi-agent deep reinforcement learning, 2017. URL https://arxiv.org/ abs/1712.07305. + +- Kwon, W., Li, Z., Zhuang, S., Sheng, Y., Zheng, L., Yu, C. H., Gonzalez, J. E., Zhang, H., and Stoica, I. Efficient memory management for large language model serving with pagedattention. In _Proceedings of the ACM SIGOPS 29th Symposium on Operating Systems Principles_ , 2023. + +- Lai, Y., Li, C., Wang, Y., Zhang, T., Zhong, R., Zettlemoyer, L., Yih, W.-T., Fried, D., Wang, S., and Yu, T. DS-1000: A natural and reliable benchmark for data science code generation. In Krause, A., Brunskill, E., Cho, K., Engelhardt, B., Sabato, S., and Scarlett, J. (eds.), _Proceedings of the 40th International Conference on Machine Learning_ , volume 202 of _Proceedings of Machine Learning Research_ , pp. 18319–18345. PMLR, 23–29 Jul 2023. URL https://proceedings.mlr.press/ v202/lai23b.html. + +- Lei, F., Meng, J., Huang, Y., Chen, T., Zhang, Y., He, S., Zhao, J., and Liu, K. Reasoning-table: Exploring reinforcement learning for table reasoning, 2025. URL https://arxiv.org/abs/2506.01710. + +- Li, J., Hui, B., Qu, G., Yang, J., Li, B., Li, B., Wang, B., Qin, B., Geng, R., Huo, N., et al. Can llm already serve as a database interface? a big bench for large-scale database grounded text-to-sqls. _Advances in Neural Information Processing Systems_ , 36, 2024. + +- Li, P., He, Y., Yan, C., Wang, Y., and Chaudhuri, S. Autotables: Synthesizing multi-step transformations to relationalize tables without using examples, 2023a. URL https://arxiv.org/abs/2307.14565. + +- Li, P., He, Y., Yashar, D., Cui, W., Ge, S., Zhang, H., Fainman, D. R., Zhang, D., and Chaudhuri, S. Table-gpt: Table-tuned gpt for diverse table tasks, 2023b. URL https://arxiv.org/abs/2310.09263. + +- Li, X., Dong, G., Jin, J., Zhang, Y., Zhou, Y., Zhu, Y., Zhang, P., and Dou, Z. Search-o1: Agentic search-enhanced large reasoning models, 2025. URL https://arxiv. org/abs/2501.05366. + +- Liu, S., Hegde, S., Cao, S., Zhu, A., Li, D., Griggs, T., Tang, E., Malik, A., Hakhamaneshi, K., Liaw, R., Moritz, P., Zaharia, M., Gonzalez, J. E., and Stoica, I. Skyrl-sql: Matching gpt-4o and o4-mini on text2sql with multi-turn rl, 2025. + +- Liu, X., Shen, S., Li, B., Ma, P., Jiang, R., Zhang, Y., Fan, J., Li, G., Tang, N., and Luo, Y. A survey of nl2sql with large language models: Where are we, and where are we going? _arXiv preprint arXiv:2408.05109_ , 2024. + +- Mohammadjafari, A., Maida, A. S., and Gottumukkala, R. From natural language to sql: Review of llm-based textto-sql systems, 2025. URL https://arxiv.org/ abs/2410.01066. + +- Nan, L., Hsieh, C., Mao, Z., Lin, X. V., Verma, N., Zhang, R., Kry´sci´nski, W., Schoelkopf, H., Kong, R., Tang, X., Mutuma, M., Rosand, B., Trindade, I., Bandaru, R., Cunningham, J., Xiong, C., Radev, D., and Radev, D. FeTaQA: Free-form table question answering. _Transactions of the Association for Computational Linguistics_ , 10:35– 49, 2022. doi: 10.1162/tacl_a_00446. URL https: //aclanthology.org/2022.tacl-1.3/. + +- Nascimento, N., Guimaraes, E., Chintakunta, S. S., and Boominathan, S. A. Llm4ds: Evaluating large language models for data science code generation, 2024. URL https://arxiv.org/abs/2411.11908. + +- Nejjar, M., Zacharias, L., Stiehle, F., and Weber, I. Llms for science: Usage for code generation and data analysis, 2024. URL https://arxiv.org/abs/2311. 16733. + +OpenAI. Gpt-4 technical report, 2023. + +--- end of page.page_number=13 --- + +- OpenAI. Openai o1 system card, 2024. URL https: //arxiv.org/abs/2412.16720. + +- Ouyang, G., Chen, J., Nie, Z., Gui, Y., Wan, Y., Zhang, H., and Chen, D. nvAgent: Automated data visualization from natural language via collaborative agent workflow. In Che, W., Nabende, J., Shutova, E., and Pilehvar, M. T. (eds.), _Proceedings of the 63rd Annual Meeting of the Association for Computational Linguistics (Volume 1: Long Papers)_ , pp. 19534–19567, Vienna, Austria, July 2025. Association for Computational Linguistics. ISBN 979-8-89176-251-0. doi: 10.18653/v1/2025.acl-long. 960. URL https://aclanthology.org/2025. acl-long.960/. + +- Pan, B., Fu, Y., Wang, K., Lu, J., Pan, L., Qian, Z., Chen, Y., Wang, G., Zhou, Y., Zheng, L., Tang, Y., Wen, Z., Wu, Y., Lu, J., Zhu, B., Zhu, M., Zhang, B., and Chen, W. Vis-shepherd: Constructing critic for llm-based data visualization generation, 2025. URL https://arxiv. org/abs/2506.13326. + +- Pan, L., Saxon, M., Xu, W., Nathani, D., Wang, X., and Wang, W. Y. Automatically correcting large language models: Surveying the landscape of diverse selfcorrection strategies, 2023. URL https://arxiv. org/abs/2308.03188. + +- Pasupat, P. and Liang, P. Compositional semantic parsing on semi-structured tables. In Zong, C. and Strube, M. (eds.), _Proceedings of the 53rd Annual Meeting of the Association for Computational Linguistics and the 7th International Joint Conference on Natural Language Processing (Volume 1: Long Papers)_ , pp. 1470–1480, Beijing, China, July 2015. Association for Computational Linguistics. doi: 10.3115/v1/P15-1142. URL https://aclanthology.org/P15-1142/. + +- Plaat, A., van Duijn, M., van Stein, N., Preuss, M., van der Putten, P., and Batenburg, K. J. Agentic large language models, a survey, 2025. URL https://arxiv.org/ abs/2503.23037. + +- Ren, Z. Z., Shao, Z., Song, J., Xin, H., Wang, H., Zhao, W., Zhang, L., Fu, Z., Zhu, Q., Yang, D., Wu, Z. F., Gou, Z., Ma, S., Tang, H., Liu, Y., Gao, W., Guo, D., and Ruan, C. Deepseek-prover-v2: Advancing formal mathematical reasoning via reinforcement learning for subgoal decomposition, 2025. URL https://arxiv. org/abs/2504.21801. + +- Salemi, A., Parmar, M., Goyal, P., Song, Y., Yoon, J., Zamani, H., Palangi, H., and Pfister, T. Llm-based multiagent blackboard system for information discovery in data science, 2025. URL https://arxiv.org/abs/ 2510.01285. + +- Sapkota, R., Roumeliotis, K. I., and Karkee, M. Ai agents vs. agentic ai: A conceptual taxonomy, applications and challenges. _Information Fusion_ , 126:103599, February 2025a. ISSN 1566-2535. doi: 10.1016/j.inffus.2025. 103599. URL http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j. inffus.2025.103599. + +- Sapkota, R., Roumeliotis, K. I., and Karkee, M. Vibe coding vs. agentic coding: Fundamentals and practical implications of agentic ai, 2025b. URL https: //arxiv.org/abs/2505.19443. + +- Shao, Z., Wang, P., Zhu, Q., Xu, R., Song, J., Bi, X., Zhang, H., Zhang, M., Li, Y. K., Wu, Y., and Guo, D. Deepseekmath: Pushing the limits of mathematical reasoning in open language models, 2024. URL https://arxiv.org/abs/2402.03300. + +- Shen, S., Huang, F., Zhao, Z., Liu, C., Zheng, T., and Zhu, D. Long is more important than difficult for training reasoning models, 2025. URL https://arxiv.org/ abs/2503.18069. + +- Sun, M., Han, R., Jiang, B., Qi, H., Sun, D., Yuan, Y., and and, J. H. Lambda: A large model based data agent. _Journal of the American Statistical Association_ , 0(ja):1–20, 2025a. doi: 10.1080/01621459.2025. 2510000. URL https://doi.org/10.1080/ 01621459.2025.2510000. + +- Sun, M., Han, R., Jiang, B., Qi, H., Sun, D., Yuan, Y., and Huang, J. A survey on large language model-based agents for statistics and data science, 2025b. URL https: //arxiv.org/abs/2412.14222. + +- Wang, P., Yu, Y., Chen, K., Zhan, X., and Wang, H. Large language model-based data science agent: A survey, 2025. URL https://arxiv.org/abs/2508.02744. + +- Wen, Y., Yin, P., Shi, K., Michalewski, H., Chaudhuri, S., and Polozov, A. Grounding data science code generation with input-output specifications, 2024. URL https: //arxiv.org/abs/2402.08073. + +- Wu, Q., Bansal, G., Zhang, J., Wu, Y., Li, B., Zhu, E., Jiang, L., Zhang, X., Zhang, S., Liu, J., Awadallah, A. H., White, R. W., Burger, D., and Wang, C. Autogen: Enabling next-gen LLM applications via multi-agent conversations. In _First Conference on Language Modeling_ , 2024. URL https://openreview.net/forum? id=BAakY1hNKS. + +- Xu, Y., He, S., Chen, J., Xiangrong, Z., Wang, B., Liu, G., Zhao, J., and Liu, K. Llasa: Large language and structured data assistant, 2025. URL https://arxiv. org/abs/2411.14460. + +--- end of page.page_number=14 --- + +- Xue, S., Jiang, C., Shi, W., Cheng, F., Chen, K., Yang, H., Zhang, Z., He, J., Zhang, H., Wei, G., Zhao, W., Zhou, F., Qi, D., Yi, H., Liu, S., and Chen, F. Db-gpt: Empowering database interactions with private large language models, 2024. URL https://arxiv.org/abs/2312. 17449. + +- Yang, J., He, Y., and Chaudhuri, S. Auto-pipeline: Synthesizing complex data pipelines by-target using reinforcement learning and search. volume 14, pp. 2563 – 2576, 2021. + +- Yang, Z., Zhou, Z., Wang, S., Cong, X., Han, X., Yan, Y., Liu, Z., Tan, Z., Liu, P., Yu, D., Liu, Z., Shi, X., and Sun, M. MatPlotAgent: Method and Evaluation for LLM-Based Agentic Scientific Data Visualization. In _Findings of the Association for Computational Linguistics ACL 2024_ , pp. 11789–11804, Stroudsburg, PA, USA, aug 2024. Association for Computational Linguistics. ISBN 9798400704901. doi: 10.18653/v1/2024.findings-acl. 701. + +- Yao, S., Zhao, J., Yu, D., Du, N., Shafran, I., Narasimhan, K. R., and Cao, Y. React: Synergizing reasoning and acting in language models. In _The Eleventh International Conference on Learning Representations_ , 2023. URL https://openreview.net/forum? id=WE_vluYUL-X. + +- Yu, T., Zhang, R., Yang, K., Yasunaga, M., Wang, D., Li, Z., Ma, J., Li, I., Yao, Q., Roman, S., Zhang, Z., and Radev, D. Spider: A large-scale human-labeled dataset for complex and cross-domain semantic parsing and text-to-SQL task. In Riloff, E., Chiang, D., Hockenmaier, J., and Tsujii, J. (eds.), _Proceedings of the 2018 Conference on Empirical Methods in Natural Language Processing_ , pp. 3911–3921, Brussels, Belgium, October-November 2018. Association for Computational Linguistics. doi: 10.18653/v1/D18-1425. URL https://aclanthology.org/D18-1425/. + +- Zhang, A., Chen, Y., Pan, J., Zhao, C., Panda, A., Li, J., and He, H. Reasoning models know when they’re right: Probing hidden states for self-verification, 2025a. URL https://arxiv.org/abs/2504.05419. + +- Zhang, D., Wu, J., Lei, J., Che, T., Li, J., Xie, T., Huang, X., Zhang, S., Pavone, M., Li, Y., Ouyang, W., and Zhou, D. Llama-berry: Pairwise optimization for o1-like olympiadlevel mathematical reasoning, 2024. URL https:// arxiv.org/abs/2410.02884. + +- Zhang, D., Zhoubian, S., Cai, M., Li, F., Yang, L., Wang, W., Dong, T., Hu, Z., Tang, J., and Yue, Y. Datascibench: An llm agent benchmark for data science, 2025b. URL https://arxiv.org/abs/2502.13897. + +- Zhang, X., Luo, S., Zhang, B., Ma, Z., Zhang, J., Li, Y., Li, G., Yao, Z., Xu, K., Zhou, J., Zhang-Li, D., Yu, J., Zhao, S., Li, J., and Tang, J. TableLLM: Enabling tabular data manipulation by LLMs in real office usage scenarios. In Che, W., Nabende, J., Shutova, E., and Pilehvar, M. T. (eds.), _Findings of the Association for Computational Linguistics: ACL 2025_ , pp. 10315–10344, Vienna, Austria, July 2025c. Association for Computational Linguistics. ISBN 979-8-89176-256-5. doi: 10.18653/v1/2025. findings-acl.538. URL https://aclanthology. org/2025.findings-acl.538/. + +- Zhao, Y., Li, Y., Li, C., and Zhang, R. MultiHiertt: Numerical reasoning over multi hierarchical tabular and textual data. In Muresan, S., Nakov, P., and Villavicencio, A. (eds.), _Proceedings of the 60th Annual Meeting of the Association for Computational Linguistics (Volume 1: Long Papers)_ , pp. 6588–6600, Dublin, Ireland, May 2022. Association for Computational Linguistics. doi: 10.18653/v1/2022.acl-long.454. URL https: //aclanthology.org/2022.acl-long.454/. + +- Zhao, Y., Huang, J., Hu, J., Wang, X., Mao, Y., Zhang, D., Jiang, Z., Wu, Z., Ai, B., Wang, A., Zhou, W., and Chen, Y. Swift:a scalable lightweight infrastructure for fine-tuning, 2024. URL https://arxiv.org/abs/ 2408.05517. + +- Zheng, Y., Fu, D., Hu, X., Cai, X., Ye, L., Lu, P., and Liu, P. Deepresearcher: Scaling deep research via reinforcement learning in real-world environments, 2025. URL https: //arxiv.org/abs/2504.03160. + +- Zhuang, A., Zhang, G., Zheng, T., Du, X., Wang, J., Ren, W., Huang, S. W., Fu, J., Yue, X., and Chen, W. Structlm: Towards building generalist models for structured knowledge grounding, 2024. URL https: //arxiv.org/abs/2402.16671. + +--- end of page.page_number=15 --- + +## **A. Construction of DABStep-Research Benchmark** + +Existing data science benchmarks typically focus only on evaluating the ability of LLMs to solve specific tasks. However, with the rise of deep research, there is an urgent need for a benchmark that assesses LLMs’ capabilities in data-oriented deep research, which ask LLMs to conduct data research and generate research reports based on given instructions and data sources. + +**Construction.** To this end, we constructed DABStep-Research, which is built upon the data sources proposed in DABStep (Egg et al., 2025). DABStep-Research consists of 100 tasks divided into five categories: data preparation, data analysis, data insight, report generation, and open-ended data research. In particular, tasks under the “report generation” category specify detailed report formats in the instruction, such as title, outline and specific requirements, thereby evaluating how well LLMs can follow instructions when generating research reports. The “open-ended data research” category involves fully open research tasks without any constraint on research direction or method. In addition to the instructions and data sources, we also provide a checklist to serve as a reference for scoring, helping evaluators determine whether the elements in a research report meet the given requirements. Figure 1 illustrates specific examples from DABStep-Research. + +**Evaluation.** We use the LLM-as-a-judge to evaluate LLM performance on DABStep-Research. Specifically, given the instruction, checklist, and the report generated by an LLM, we employ a state-of-the-art LLM as the evaluator to assign a score from 1 to 5 based on two aspects: content and format. The prompt used for the LLM-as-judge evaluation is shown below. + +Prompt of DABStep-Research Evaluation You are a data science evaluation assistant. Here’s a generated data science report based on the user instruction. Your task is to comprehensively evaluate the quality of the generated data science report, based on the provided user instruction [INSTRUCTION], a checklist offering reference points for an ideal report [CHECKLIST], and the generated report [REPORT]. You should assess the report across the following two dimensions, each scored on a scale from 1 (poor), 3 (Fair), 5 (excellent). Please use the detailed guidelines below to calibrate your evaluation: **– Content** : Is the report’s content helpful, comprehensive, and relevant to the task goal? **1 (Poor)** : Content is completely irrelevant, incorrect, or fails to reflect the given task. **2 (Weak)** : Mostly irrelevant or inaccurate; shows little understanding of the task or data. **3 (Fair)** : Partially relevant and somewhat useful, but incomplete, superficial, or missing several key aspects. **4 (Good)** : Relevant and generally helpful content that addresses the task goal with clear findings; minor gaps or shallow areas may remain. **5 (Excellent)** : Highly informative, comprehensive, and well-balanced content that fully and insightfully addresses the task goal. **– Format** : Is the report presented in a polished academic style? **1 (Poor)** : Disorganized or unprofessional presentation; difficult to follow, with major grammatical or formatting issues. **2 (Weak)** : Understandable but inconsistent in structure or tone; lacks clear formatting or proper academic expression, such as many short sentences and bullet points. **3 (Fair)** : Generally clear structure and readable style, though uneven in flow, tone, or academic polish. **4 (Good)** : Well-written and professionally presented in an academic style; clear organization and formatting with only minor imperfections. **5 (Excellent)** : Polished, fluent, and professional presentation; precise structure, coherent tone, and excellent readability throughout. **[INSTRUCTION]** : {instruction} **[CHECKLIST]** : {checklist} **[REPORT]** : {report} Directly return your evaluation in the following JSON format: ‘‘‘json { "Content": , "Format": , } ‘‘‘ + +--- end of page.page_number=16 --- + +**==> picture [297 x 9] intentionally omitted <==** + +**----- Start of picture text -----**
+DeepAnalyze: Agentic Large Language Models for Autonomous Data Science
**----- End of picture text -----**
+ + +**==> picture [485 x 159] intentionally omitted <==** + +**----- Start of picture text -----**
+Instruction Checklist Instruction Checklist
PreparationData Create a comprehensive data preparation report for optimizing payment processing fee calculations. The report must analyze the provided datasets (payments, merchant data, fees, acquirer countries, MCC codes) to identify and resolve data quality issues that would prevent accurate fee computation. Specifically, investigate data completeness, consistency across sources, and proper categorization required for applying the fee rules defined in the manual. The research report must include:- Assessment of data completeness and identification of missing critical fields (e.g., merchant_category_code in payments, acquirer country details)- Validation of categorical data consistency against reference tables (e.g., ACI codes, MCC codes, account types)- Strategy for merging transaction data with merchant metadata and fee rules- Plan for handling null values in fee rule conditions as specified in the manual Generate a comprehensive data report analyzing the payment processing efficiency and cost optimization opportunities for the provided merchant data. The report must follow this exact structure and include all specified sections:# Merchant Payment Processing Analysis Report## 1. Executive Summary The research report must include:- Title exactly as "Merchant Payment Processing Analysis Report"- All 10 main sections as specified in the structure- Executive Summary with key findings and recommendations- Merchant Profile Analysis for each merchant in the dataset
The report should propose a cleaned, merged dataset ready for analysis and include a step-by-step plan for calculating the exact fee for each transaction based on merchant characteristics, transaction details, and the rules in fees.json. - Methodology for calculating the final fee (fixed_amount + rate * transaction_value / 10000) for a sample of transactions- Summary of key data issues found and their impact on fee calculation accuracy ### 1.1 Key Findings Overview### 1.2 Critical Recommendations### 1.3 Financial Impact Assessment - Transaction volume and value analysis with numerical evidence- Fee structure optimization analysis referencing specific fee rules
## 2. Merchant Profile Analysis - Fraud rate assessment with current levels and patterns
Instruction Checklist ### 2.1 Account Type Classification### 2.2 Merchant Category Code (MCC) Analysis - Strategic recommendations categorized by implementation timeline
AnalysisData Analyze the payment transactions dataset to identify cost optimization opportunities for merchants by examining fee structures, transaction patterns, and fraud metrics. Produce a comprehensive data science report that evaluates how different merchant characteristics (account type, MCC, volume), transaction attributes (ACI, card scheme, cross-border status), and fraud levels impact processing costs. The report should provide actionable recommendations for each merchant to minimize fees while maintaining security and conversion rates. The research report should include:- Analysis of fee distribution across different card schemes, ACIs, and merchant categories- Evaluation of cross-border vs domestic transaction costs and volume patterns- Fraud rate analysis and its correlation with processing costs- Monthly volume patterns and their impact on fee optimization- Merchant-specific cost analysis and optimization recommendations- Identification of transaction downgrade risks and prevention strategies- Summary of key cost drivers and prioritized optimization opportunities GenerationReport ### 2.3 Acquirer Network Configuration### 2.4 Capture Delay Patterns## 3. Transaction Performance Analysis### 3.1 Volume and Value Distribution#### 3.1.1 Transaction Volume by Merchant#### 3.1.2 Average Transaction Value Analysis#### 3.1.3 Temporal Patterns (Hourly/Daily/Seasonal)### 3.2 Authorization Characteristics - Implementation roadmap with priority sequencing- Conclusion summarizing opportunities and expected impact- Appendices with methodology and references- Clear section numbering following the hierarchical structure- Data-supported recommendations with specific numerical evidence- Comparative analysis between different merchants
#### 3.2.1 ACI Distribution Analysis - Cross-references to fee rules and merchant category codes
Instruction Checklist #### 3.2.2 Card Scheme Performance#### 3.2.3 Credit vs Debit Transaction Patterns
InsightData Generate a comprehensive data insight report analyzing the payment transaction data to identify cost optimization opportunities for merchants. The report should analyze how different transaction characteristics (ACI, card scheme, merchant category, volume, fraud levels, etc.) impact processing fees and provide actionable recommendations for minimizing costs while maintaining security and conversion rates. Include specific analysis of how merchants can optimize their The research report should include:- Analysis of fee structures across different transaction characteristics (ACI, card scheme, etc.)- Identification of highest cost drivers in the current payment processing- Comparison of domestic vs international transaction costs and optimization opportunities- Fraud rate impact analysis on processing fees and cost-benefit of prevention measures- Volume-based pricing analysis and recommendations for volume optimization- Merchant-specific cost optimization recommendations based on their business profiles omitted to save space… ## 10. Appendices### 10.1 Data Sources and Methodology### 10.2 Key Term Definitions### 10.3 Reference Tables
fee structures by adjusting transaction routing, authentication methods, and fraud prevention strategies based on their business profiles. - Actionable strategies for minimizing downgrades and avoiding penalty fees- Cost-benefit analysis of different authentication methods and transaction routing options Format Requirements - Use clear, actionable business language:
- Include specific numerical evidence for all recommendations
Data ResearchOpen-ended Conduct open-ended data science research, finally output a research report.Instruction N/A Checklist - Provide merchant-specific analysis for each entity in the dataset- Cross-reference findings with the fee rules in fees.json- Include comparative analysis between merchants- All recommendations must be supported by data evidence
**----- End of picture text -----**
+ + +_Figure 9._ Cases in the constructed DABStep-Research benchmark, including data preparation, data analysis, data insight, report generation, and open-ended data research. + +## **B. Keyword-guided Reasoning Trajectory Synthesis** + +We present examples of Keyword-guided Reasoning Trajectory Synthesis in Figure 10. Specifically, the “Question” and Original Response are taken from existing TableQA datasets. + +In the distillation step, we employ SOTA closed-source LLMs as teacher models to extract their reasoning trajectories, which is the most common way used in current data synthesis methods. However, such methods are more suitable for general reasoning processes. Since SOTA closed-source LLMs have not been specifically trained on domains like data science (e.g., structured data understanding), their reasoning trajectories tend to overlook the provided data. + +Therefore, we introduce a refinement step to enhance the reasoning trajectory’s focus on structured data by inserting reasoning keywords that guide the reasoning process toward structured data understanding. Specifically, in the example shown in Figure 10, we sample three reasoning keywords (“What happens at the boundaries?”, “Let’s review the prior reasoning”, and “Let’s take a closer look at the table”) and ask the teacher model to refine its reasoning trajectory based on these keywords. We observe that the final “refinement” results exhibits a significantly stronger emphasis on repeated examination and reflection on structured data, thereby improving the overall quality of the reasoning trajectory. Overall, the proposed keyword-guided refinement is a useful data synthesis technique that can also be applied to the data synthesis of other complex tasks. + +## **C. Cases** + +In Figure 11, Figure 12, Figure 13, Figure 14, and Figure 15, we demonstrate a series of autonomous data science cases, covering the entire pipeline from data sources to analyst-grade research reports. These cases include data preparation, data analysis, data insight extraction, report generation under specific constraints, and fully open-ended data research. Compared with previous closed-source LLMs and tool-calling frameworks, DeepAnalyze can produce higher-quality, analyst-level reports, exhibiting a stronger ability for autonomous data research. + +--- end of page.page_number=17 --- + +|**Stage**|||**Reasoning Trajectory**|| +|---|---|---|---|---| +|||Below is an instruction that describes a question answering task in the finance domain, provided with an input table and relevant text as context.||| +|||Please answer the given question based on the table and text.||| +|||### Instruction||| +|||Given a table and a list of texts in the following, what is the answer to the question?
### Table:||| +|||| Dry Bulk Vessel Operations for the Year Ended December 31, 2019 | Logistics Business for the Year Ended December 31, 2019 | Total for the Year Ended December 31, 2019||| +|||Revenue | $254,178 | $228,271 | $482,449||| +|||Administrative fee revenue from affiliates | 16,991 | — | 16,991||| +|||Interest income | 9,610 | 1,052 | 10,662||| +|||Interest expense and finance cost | (92,948) | (40,531) | (133,479)||| +|||Depreciation and amortization | (52,288) | (29,435) | (81,723)||| +|||Equity in net (losses)/earnings of affiliated companies | (9,185) | — | (9,185)||| +|||Net (loss)/ income attributable to Navios Holdings common | | |||| +|||stockholders | (212,623) | 20,513 | (192,110)||| +|||Total assets | 1,511,517 | 631,338 | 2,142,855||| +|||Goodwill | 56,240 | 104,096 | 160,336||| +|**Question**||Capital expenditures | (36,628) | (7,943) | (44,571)
Investment in affiliates | 64,352 | — | 64,352||| +|||Cash and cash equivalents | 32,386 | 45,605 | 77,991||| +|||Restricted cash | 736 | — | 736||| +|||Long-term debt, net (including current and noncurrent portion) | $1,048,318 ||$514,929 | 1,563,247|| +|||### Text:||| +|||Paragraph 1: NAVIOS MARITIME HOLDINGS INC. NOTES TO THE CONSOLIDATED FINANCIAL STATEMENTS (Expressed in thousands of U.S. dollars — except share data)||| +|||Paragraph 2: NOTE 19: SEGMENT INFORMATION||| +|||Paragraph 3: The Company through August 30, 2019 had three reportable segments from which it derived its revenues: Dry Bulk Vessel Operations, Logistics Business and Containers Business. The Containers Business became a reportable segment as a result of the consolidation of Navios Containers since November||30, 2018 (date of obtaining control) (see also Note 3). Following| +|||the reclassification of the results of Navios Containers as discontinued operations (see also Note 3), the Company currently has two reportable segments from which it derives its revenues: Dry Bulk Vessel Operations and Logistics. The reportable segments reflect the internal organization of the Company and are strategic businesses that offer different products and services. The Dry||| +|||Bulk Vessel Operations consists of the transportation and handling of bulk cargoes through the ownership, operation, and trading of vessels. The Logistics Business consists of operating ports and transfer station terminals, handling of vessels, barges and pushboats as well as upriver transport facilities in the Hidrovia region.||| +|||Paragraph 4: The Company measures segment performance based on net income/ (loss) attributable to Navios Holdings common stockholders. Inter-segment sales and transfers are not significant and have been eliminated and are not included in the following tables. Summarized financial information concerning each of the Company’s reportable segments is as follows:||| +|||### Question:||| +|||What was the difference in revenue between dry bulk vessel operations and logistics business?||| +|||### Response||| +|||Your response should end with `Answer: xxx` (answer to the question).||| +|||Now, answer the question step by step:||| +|**Original**||Answer: 25,907||| +|||||| +|||Alright, let's tackle this finance question step by step. The user wants to know the revenue difference between dry bulk vessel operations and logistics business for Navios Holdings in 2019.||| +|||First, I'll locate the revenue figures in the provided table. Scanning the first data row under "Dry Bulk Vessel Operations" shows $254,178, while "Logistics Business" shows $228,271. Both are clearly labeled under the 2019 year-end columns.||| +|||The question specifically asks for the difference, which implies subtraction. Calculating: $254,178 minus $228,271 equals $25,907.||| +|||Now, should I consider any context from the text? Paragraph 3 confirms these are the two active reportable segments after containers were reclassified as discontinued operations. Paragraph 4 emphasizes they're measured by net income/loss (irrelevant here) but crucially states inter-segment transactions are eliminated||- meaning these revenues aren't inflated by internal transfers.| +|||No currency or unit conversions are needed since everything's in thousands of USD. The math is straightforward: no percentages or ratios required, just absolute difference.||| +|||Double-checking: table headers align with the question's timeframe, and no other revenue lines (like administrative fees) are mixed in because the question isolates "revenue" for each segment.||| +|||Final verification: $254,178 - $228,271 = $25,907. This seems solid.
||| +|**Distillation**||To determine the revenue difference between dry bulk vessel operations and logistics business:||| +|||1. **Identify relevant revenue figures** from the table:||| +|||- Dry Bulk Vessel Operations revenue: **$254,178**||| +|||- Logistics Business revenue: **$228,271**||| +|||2. **Calculate the difference**:||| +|||Subtract Logistics revenue from Dry Bulk revenue:||| +|||$254,178 - $228,271 = **$25,907**||| +|||3. **Verify context** (Text Paragraphs 3-4):||| +|||- The segments are distinct, with no significant inter-segment transactions.||| +|||- Revenues are explicitly reported per segment in the table.||| +|||- The calculation aligns with the question’s focus on standalone segment revenues.||| +|||Answer: $25,907||| +|||||| +|||Let's begin by clearly defining the problem at hand: the question asks for the difference in revenue between the Dry Bulk Vessel Operations segment and the Logistics Business segment for the year ended December 31, 2019. To solve this, I need to follow a structured approach: first, confirm the relevant segments and their revenue metrics, then locate the specific numerical values in the||| +|||provided table, verify that these values are accurate and unadjusted by inter-segment transactions, perform the subtraction to find the difference, and finally cross-check with the context in the text to ensure no critical details are missed.||| +|||First, I should confirm which segments are being compared. The text in Paragraph 3 notes that after August 30, 2019, the Company has two reportable segments: Dry Bulk Vessel Operations and Logistics Business (since the Containers Business was reclassified as discontinued operations). This aligns with the table, which only lists these two segments under the "Year Ended December||| +|||31, 2019" columns, so these are the correct segments to focus on.||| +|||Next, the key metric here is "revenue." I need to ensure I am selecting the right

|line item in the table. The table has multiple rows, including "Administrative fee revenue from affiliates," "Interest income," etc., but the question specifically asks for "revenue," which is the top-line item.**Let's take a closer look at the table**|
to identify the "Revenue" row.| +|||The table is titled "Dry Bulk Vessel Operations for the Year Ended December 31, 2019," "Logistics Business for the Year Ended December 31, 2019," and "Total for the Year Ended December 31, 2019." The first data row in the table is labeled "Revenue." Under this row:||| +|||- The value for Dry Bulk Vessel Operations is $254,178.||| +|||- The value for Logistics Business is $228,271.||| +|||- The "Total" column for Revenue is $482,449, which is the sum of the two segment revenues ($254,178 + $228,271 = $482,449), confirming that these are the primary revenue figures for the segments and not adjusted by other line items.||| +|||It is critical to note that other rows like "Administrative fee revenue from affiliates" ($16,991 for Dry Bulk) or "Interest income" ($9,610 for Dry Bulk, $1,052 for Logistics) are separate from the core "Revenue" line item. The question explicitly asks for "revenue," so these secondary income streams are irrelevant here. The table structure clearly separates "Revenue" as the first row,||| +|||making it the correct metric to use.||| +|||||| +|||||| +|||Now that I have identified the relevant revenue figures for both segments, the next step is to calculate the difference between them. The question asks for the "difference," which in financial contexts typically refers to the absolute or directional variance between two values. Since Dry Bulk Vessel Operations revenue ($254,178) is larger than Logistics Business revenue ($228,271), the||| +|||difference will be Dry Bulk revenue minus Logistics revenue.||| +|||Before proceeding with the calculation, I should verify that there are no adjustments needed to these revenue figures. The text in Paragraph 4 states: "Inter-segment sales and transfers are not significant and have been eliminated and are not included in the following tables." This is crucial because if there were significant inter-segment transactions, the reported revenues might include||| +|||internal sales, which would need to be excluded to get the true standalone revenue of each segment. However, the text explicitly confirms that such transactions are eliminated, so the revenues in the table represent the external, standalone revenue of each segment. This ensures the numbers are accurate for comparison.||| +|||Let's now perform the numerical subtraction step by step to avoid errors.||| +|||||| +|||||| +|**Refinement**||To calculate the difference:
Dry Bulk Vessel Operations Revenue: $254,178
Logistics Business Revenue: $228,271||| +|**Insert Key Reasoning**||||| +|**Words:**||Subtract Logistics revenue from Dry Bulk revenue:
$254,178 - $228,271||| +|**1. What happens at the**||||| +|**boundaries?**||Let’s break down the subtraction:
- 254,178 - 228,271 = (254,000 - 228,000) + (178 - 271)||| +|**2. Let's review the prior**||- 254,000 - 228,000 = 26,000||| +|**reasoning**||- 178 - 271 = -93
- Total: 26,000 - 93 = 25,907||| +|**3. Let's take a closer look**||||| +|**at the table**||Thus, the result is $25,907.||| +|||To confirm accuracy, we can also check by adding the difference to Logistics revenue to see if we get back to Dry Bulk revenue: $228,271 + $25,907 = $254,178, which matches. This cross-verification ensures the subtraction was performed correctly.||| +|||||| +|||||| +|||**Let's review the prior reasoning**
to ensure no steps were overlooked. We started by confirming the relevant segments (Dry Bulk and Logistics) based on the text, which eliminated the discontinued Containers segment. We then identified the "Revenue" row in the table as the correct metric, distinguishing it from other income lines like administrative fees or interest income. We||| +|||extracted the values ($254,178 and $228,271) and verified they sum to the total|revenue, confirming their validity. We checked for inter-segment transactions, which the text stated are eliminated, so no adjustments were needed. Finally, we calculated the difference via subtraction and cross-verified the result.|| +|||**What happens at the boundaries?**
For example, could the "Total" revenue include other segments? The text in Paragraph 3 clarifies that after August 30, 2019, there are only two reportable segments, and the table only lists these two, so the total revenue is indeed the sum of the two. There are no other segments or hidden revenues to consider.||| +|||Is there any chance the units are inconsistent? The text in Paragraph 1 specifies|that the financial statements are "Expressed in thousands of U.S. dollars," and both revenue figures are in the same units (thousands of USD), so no unit conversion is necessary. The calculated difference of $25,907 is therefore in thousands|of USD, which aligns with the question’s context.| +|||All checks confirm the reasoning is sound, and the calculation is accurate. The|final step is to present the answer.|| +|||||| +|||||| +|||To determine the revenue difference between dry bulk vessel operations and logistics business:||| +|||1. **Identify relevant revenue figures** from the table:||| +|||- Dry Bulk Vessel Operations revenue: **$254,178**||| +|||- Logistics Business revenue: **$228,271**||| +|||2. **Calculate the difference**:||| +|||Subtract Logistics revenue from Dry Bulk revenue:||| +|||$254,178 - $228,271 = **$25,907**||| +|||3. **Verify context** (Text Paragraphs 3-4):||| +|||- The segments are distinct, with no significant inter-segment transactions.||| +|||- Revenues are explicitly reported per segment in the table.||| +|||- The calculation aligns with the question’s focus on standalone segment revenues.||| +|||Answer: $25,907||| +|||||| +||||_Figure 10._ Example of reasoning trajectory synthesis.|| + + + +--- end of page.page_number=18 --- + +|**Instruction**|**DeepAnalyze-8B**|**Deepseek-r1**|**o3-mini**| +|---|---|---|---| +|Analyze the payment processing
dataset to identify and resolve data
quality issues that impact fee
calculation accuracy. Prepare a
comprehensive data preparation
report that documents data
inconsistencies, implements
cleaning strategies for merchant
categorization, transaction
characteristics, and country
mappings, and evaluates how these
preparations affect the reliability of
fee estimation models. The report
should include specific
recommendations for optimizing
data collection processes to
minimize processing costs.|# Comprehensive Data Preparation Report: Payment Processing Fee Analysis
## Executive Summary
This report analyzes payment processing datasets to identify data quality issues impacting fee
calculation accuracy. Through examination of 7 datasets (30 merchants, 1,000 fee rules, and
synthetic transaction data), we identified key data quality factors affecting fee estimation
reliability and recommend process improvements to minimize processing costs.
## 1. Data Quality Assessment
### 1.1 Merchant Categorization
- **Completeness**: 100% complete merchant-category mappings across all datasets
- **Consistency**: Merchant names consistently represented across merchant_data.json and
payments.csv
- **Coverage**: 7 unique merchant category codes among 30 merchants
### 1.2 Geographic Data
- **Acquirer Countries**: Complete mapping of 8 acquirers across 5 countries
- **Transaction Data**: Requires validation against merchant locations
### 1.3 Fee Rule Structure
- **Completeness**: 90% complete is_credit values in fee rules
- **Complexity**: 1,000 rules with 12 attributes each averaging 4.2 conditional constraints
## 2. Data Preparation Steps
### 2.1 Cleaning Strategies
1. **Merchant Matching**:
- Developed fuzzy matching algorithm for merchant name normalization (92% match rate)
- Created crosswalk table for variant merchant names
2. **Fee Rule Validation**:
- Flagged 100 rules with missing is_credit values for review
- Standardized merchant category code lists in fee rules
3. **Geographic Resolution**:
- Enhanced acquirer country mapping with IP geolocation fallback
### 2.2 Quality Metrics
| Metric | Before Cleaning | After Cleaning |
|--------|-----------------|-----------------|
| Missing Merchant Matches | 18% | 2% |
| Inconsistent Categories | 12% | 0% |
| Unclassified Transactions | 9% | 1% |
## 3. Impact on Fee Estimation
### 3.1 Accuracy Improvement
- **Current**:±8.2% fee calculation error due to categorization issues
- **After Cleaning**:±1.3% error margin
### 3.2 Processing Cost Impact
| Factor | Current Cost | Optimized Cost | Reduction |
|---------|-------------|----------------|-----------|
| Fraudulent Fee Disputes | $12,400/month | $2,800/month | 77% |
| Incorrect Fees | $8,700/month | $1,200/month | 86% |
## 4. Recommendations
### 4.1 Data Collection Improvements
1. **Real-Time Merchant Categorization**:
- Implement AI-powered category suggestion during onboarding
- Estimated 30% reduction in dispute resolution costs
2. **Enhanced Transaction Attributes**:
- Collect merchant location granularity (city/region)
- Add product/service categories
3. **Automated Data Validation**:
- Implement real-time rule validation during transaction processing
- Estimated 25% reduction in manual reconciliation
### 4.2 Process Optimization
1. **Batch Processing Windows**:
- Shift non-essential processing to off-peak hours
- Potential 15% energy cost reduction
2. **Predictive Fee Allocation**:
- Implement machine learning for fee estimation
- Projected 18% improvement in accuracy
## 5. Conclusion
This analysis demonstrates that systematic data preparation can significantly improve fee
calculation accuracy while reducing operational costs. The implemented solutions provide a
foundation for continuous improvement through ongoing monitoring of the data quality metrics
and processing efficiency gains.
Appendix: Complete dataset schemas and cleaning code available upon request.|Based on the initial analysis of the payment processing dataset, I've identified several critical data
quality issues. Here's a comprehensive report structured according to your requirements:
### 1. Data Quality Issues and Inconsistencies
- **Missing Data**:
- `acquirer_country`: 12,543 missing values (5.4% of transactions)
- `merchant_category_code`: 8,217 missing values (3.6% of transactions)
- `transaction_currency`: 1,205 missing values (0.5% of transactions)
- **Invalid References**:
- Merchant Category Codes: 3,581 transactions (1.6%) contain invalid MCCs not present in the
reference table
- Acquirer Countries: 2,894 transactions (1.3%) reference non-existent country codes
- **Data Distribution Anomalies**:
- 95% of transactions concentrated in just 15 MCC categories
- 87% of transactions originate from only 5 countries
- Transaction amounts show significant right-skewness (mean = $152, max = $32,500)
### 2. Data Cleaning Strategies
**A. Merchant Categorization**
```json
{"code":"# Handle invalid/missing MCCs\
valid_mcc = set(merchant_categories['mcc'])\
payments['mcc_valid'] = payments['merchant_category_code'].isin(valid_mcc)\
payments.loc[~payments['mcc_valid'], 'merchant_category_code'] = 9999 # Unknown category\
payments['merchant_category_code'].fillna(9999, inplace=True)"}
```
**B. Country Mapping**
```json
{"code":"# Clean country references\
valid_countries = set(acquirer_countries['country_code'])\
payments['country_valid'] = payments['acquirer_country'].isin(valid_countries)\
payments.loc[~payments['country_valid'], 'acquirer_country'] = 'ZZ' # Unknown country\
payments['acquirer_country'].fillna('ZZ', inplace=True)\
\
# Create region mapping\
region_map = acquirer_countries.set_index('country_code')['region'].to_dict()\
payments['acquirer_region'] = payments['acquirer_country'].map(region_map)\
payments['acquirer_region'].fillna('Unknown', inplace=True)"}
```
**C. Transaction Characteristics**
```json
{"code":"# Handle missing currencies\
payments['transaction_currency'].fillna('USD', inplace=True)\
\
# Detect and cap outliers\
Q1 = payments['transaction_amount'].quantile(0.25)\
Q3 = payments['transaction_amount'].quantile(0.75)\
IQR = Q3 - Q1\
upper_bound = Q3 + 3*IQR\
payments['transaction_amount'] = payments['transaction_amount'].clip(upper=upper_bound)"}
```
### 3. Impact on Fee Calculation Accuracy
- **Before Cleaning**:
- 7.9% of transactions (18,193) would have incorrect fee calculations due to invalid/missing
references
- Extreme transaction amounts would distort interchange fee calculations
- Regional fee variations couldn't be accurately applied
- **After Cleaning**:
- 100% reference integrity for MCCs and countries
- Outlier capping ensures stable fee calculations
- Region-based fee rules can be precisely applied
- Estimated fee calculation error rate reduced from±8.2% to±0.9%
### 4. Recommendations for Data Collection Optimization
1. **Validation at Ingestion**:
- Implement MCC and country code validation during transaction recording
- Add mandatory field checks for `acquirer_country` and `merchant_category_code`
2. **Automated Quality Monitoring**:
- Create daily data quality dashboards tracking:
- Missing value rates per critical field
- Reference table match rates
- Transaction amount distribution shifts
3. **Reference Data Management**:
- Establish monthly review process for MCC and country code updates
- Implement version control for fee structure documents
4. **Standardization**:
- Enforce ISO standards for country codes (ISO 3166) and currencies (ISO 4217)
- Develop MCC taxonomy with clear category definitions
These improvements will reduce processing costs by minimizing reconciliation efforts, preventing
fee miscalculations, and enabling more accurate financial forecasting. The cleaned dataset now
supports reliable fee modeling with complete reference integrity across all critical dimensions.|Below is the final data preparation report:
---------------------------------------------------------
Data Preparation Report for Payment Processing Dataset
---------------------------------------------------------
• Data files were loaded successfully:
- acquirer_countries.csv loaded successfully with the acquirer country mappings.
- fees.json loaded as fee definitions for fee calculation.
- merchant_category_codes.csv loaded to support standardized merchant categorization.
- merchant_data.json loaded and converted to a DataFrame, representing additional merchant
metadata.
- payments.csv loaded (largest dataset) with comprehensive transaction records.
• Preliminary analysis of payments data exposed several data quality issues:
1. Missing Values & Duplicates:
- A summary of missing values per field was computed. Several columns had missing entries that
require further imputation.
- Duplicate records were identified, indicating the need for deduplication.
2. Merchant Categorization Inconsistency:
- Discrepancies were noted between merchant categories in payments.csv and those in
merchant_category_codes.csv. This inconsistency could cause improper fee calculations if similar
items are miscategorized.
3. Transaction Characteristics:
- Transaction amounts display potential outliers and missing data. These issues could bias fee
estimates if not addressed.
4. Country Mappings:
- A cross-check between acquirer_country from payments and acquirer_countries.csv revealed
potential mismatches that might affect regional fee-related rules.
• Cleaning Strategies Implemented:
- Merchant Categorization Standardization:
• Use merchant_category_codes.csv to remap and enforce consistency via string normalization
(trimming, lowercasing, etc.).
- Transaction Characteristics:
• Implement imputation strategies (e.g., median imputation) for missing transaction_amount
values.
• Employ domain analysis to identify and trim extreme outliers to avoid distortion.
- Country Mappings:
• Merge payments data with acquirer_countries.csv to validate and correct country identifiers.
• Impact on Fee Estimation Models:
• These data cleaning strategies ensure fee calculation models operate on properly categorized and
validated data.
• Improvements such as deduplication, imputation, and outlier trimming help in reducing biases,
leading to more reliable fee estimations.
• Recommendations for Optimizing Data Collection Processes:
1. Standardize Data Entry:
- Enforce uniform data entry formats using dropdowns or controlled vocabularies for merchant
categories and country codes.
2. Real-time Validation:
- Integrate robust validation rules at data entry (e.g., for transaction amounts, dates, and fee
parameters) to catch errors early.
3. Regular Automated Audits:
- Automate periodic audits to monitor merging processes across different source files (fees.json,
payments.csv, etc.) and quickly identify any discrepancies.
4. Comprehensive Data Dictionary:
- Maintain an up-to-date data dictionary linking all source files and field definitions, facilitating
smoother integrations and further reporting.
A detailed report has been saved as data_preparation_report.txt. Following these
recommendations will help minimize processing costs and improve the accuracy of fee estimation
models by ensuring higher data quality throughout the processing pipeline.
---------------------------------------------------------
End of Report
---------------------------------------------------------| + + + +_Figure 11._ A data preparation case of autonomous data science, from data sources to analyst-grade research reports. + +--- end of page.page_number=19 --- + +|**Instruction**|**DeepAnalyze-8B**|**Deepseek-r1**|**o3-mini**| +|---|---|---|---| +|Analyze the payment transaction
dataset to identify cost optimization
opportunities for merchants by
examining fee structures, fraud
patterns, and transaction
characteristics. Generate a
comprehensive data science report
that provides actionable
recommendations for minimizing
payment processing fees while
maintaining security and conversion
rates. The report should include
analysis of fee drivers, fraud risk
factors, acquirer selection strategies,
and specific optimization
recommendations tailored to
different merchant profiles.|# Comprehensive Analysis of Payment Processing Optimization Opportunities
## Executive Summary
This comprehensive analysis examines payment processing data from multiple European
merchants to identify cost optimization opportunities through detailed examination of fee
structures, fraud patterns, and transaction characteristics. The study leverages a dataset
comprising over 23,000 payment transactions across 1,000 fee structures, 769 merchant categories,
and 8 acquirer banks. Our methodology combines advanced statistical analysis with business rule
optimization to identify actionable strategies for reducing payment processing costs while
maintaining security and conversion rates.
The analysis reveals that merchants can potentially reduce processing fees by 18-27% through
strategic account type selection, optimal acquirer selection, and transaction routing optimization.
Fraud prevention strategies can simultaneously reduce fraud-related fees by an estimated 35-42%
while maintaining current fraud levels. The findings are supported by detailed segmentation
analysis of 112 merchant profiles across 7 primary merchant categories.
## Merchant Profile Analysis and Segmentation
The merchant base comprises 112 distinct merchants categorized across 769 merchant category
codes, with the most prevalent categories being Membership Clubs (Sports, Recreation, Athletic),
Eating Places and Restaurants, and Book Stores. The merchant distribution shows a balanced
account type distribution with 34% Hospitality (H), 31% Franchise (F), 22% Retail (R), 9%
Digital (D), and 4% SaaS (S) accounts. This segmentation reveals significant variation in fee
structures across merchant types, with Hospitality merchants paying 18-22% higher processing
fees on average compared to Retail merchants.
Merchant acquirer relationships show 42% of merchants utilize 2+ acquirers, with an average of
1.7 acquirers per merchant. The most common acquirer relationships involve Gringotts Bank
(GB) and The Savings and Loan Bank (US), handling 38% of total transaction volume. Merchant
category analysis reveals that Eating Places and Restaurants account for 22% of transaction
volume but only 15% of merchant count, indicating higher average transaction values in this
category.
The enhanced merchant profiles reveal that 68% of merchants fall into high-risk merchant
categories (MCCs 5812, 7997, 5942) which typically incur 23-31% higher fraud-related fees.
Merchant capture delay analysis shows that merchants with immediate capture delays experience
15-18% lower chargeback rates but 7-9% higher processing fees compared to manual capture
merchants.
## Fee Structure Optimization Opportunities
The fee structure analysis reveals complex fee calculations combining fixed amounts (€0.01-€0.15)
and variable rates (5-19 basis points) across 1,000 fee rules. The most common fee structure
combines a €0.05 fixed amount with 12 basis points, applied to 38% of transactions. Merchant
category analysis shows that Hospitality merchants pay 23% higher fees than Retail merchants for
equivalent transaction values, primarily due to higher fraud risk premiums.
Account type analysis reveals that Digital (D) merchants pay 18-22% lower fees than Hospitality
(H) merchants for equivalent transaction values, despite similar fraud rates. The data shows that
switching from Hospitality to Retail account types could save merchants €12,000 annually for a
€100,000 volume merchant. Merchant category optimization opportunities vary from 12-18%
savings for Retail merchants to 23-27% for Digital merchants.
Acquirer selection analysis reveals that merchants using multiple acquirers can reduce fees by 8-
12% through optimal routing. The data shows that 62% of merchants could reduce fees by 5-8%
by shifting just 20% of volume to lower-fee acquirers. Fraud prevention strategies can reduce
fraud-related fees by 35-42% while maintaining current fraud levels through tokenization (12-15%
reduction) and 3D Secure (23-27% reduction).
## Transaction Pattern Analysis and Fraud Prevention
Transaction pattern analysis reveals that 68% of fraudulent transactions occur during off-peak
hours (2-5 AM local time) and from non-standard IP locations (72%). The data shows that
implementing device fingerprinting could reduce fraud by 15-18% with minimal false positives (2-
3%). Authorization Characteristics Indicator (ACI) analysis shows that ACI B (Card Not Present -
3D Secure) transactions have 23-27% lower fraud rates but 12-15% higher processing fees than
ACI C (Tokenized card not present).
Merchant category fraud rates vary from 2.1% for Book Stores to 8.3% for Eating Places and
Restaurants. The data shows that implementing fraud prevention strategies can reduce fraud-
related fees by 35-42% while maintaining current fraud levels. The optimal fraud prevention
strategy combines tokenization (12-15% fraud reduction) with 3D Secure (23-27% reduction) and
device fingerprinting (15-18% reduction).
Transaction value analysis reveals that merchants accepting €50-€100 transactions pay 18-22%
lower fees than those accepting >€500 transactions, suggesting optimal transaction splitting
strategies. The data shows that splitting €500 transactions into two €250 transactions could save
merchants 12-15% on processing fees while maintaining customer experience.
## Implementation Roadmap and Recommendations
The implementation roadmap suggests a phased approach to fee optimization, beginning with
account type optimization (Month 1-2, saving 8-12%), followed by acquirer optimization (Month
3-4, saving 5-8%), and concluding with fraud prevention implementation (Month 5-6, saving 35-
42%). The total potential savings for a €100,000 volume merchant could reach €18,000 annually
through comprehensive implementation.
The analysis identifies three primary optimization pathways: Account Type Optimization (12-
18% savings), Merchant Category Optimization (15-22% savings), and Fraud Prevention (35-42%
savings). The implementation requires minimal technical changes but requires strategic account
management and process changes. The payback period for fraud prevention technologies averages
6-9 months, with ROI exceeding 3:1 for most merchants.
The complete implementation roadmap includes detailed merchant-specific optimization plans
based on the segmentation analysis, with tailored strategies for Hospitality, Retail, and Digital
merchants. The analysis provides merchant-specific fee optimization calculators and scenario
modeling tools to project potential savings for each merchant profile.
## Conclusion and Future Research Directions
This comprehensive analysis demonstrates that systematic payment processing optimization can
significantly reduce merchant costs while maintaining security and conversion rates. The findings
provide actionable insights for merchants, processors, and payment service providers to optimize
payment processing strategies. Future research directions include real-time fee optimization
algorithms and machine learning models for dynamic fee optimization based on transaction
characteristics.
The analysis methodology and findings provide a foundation for ongoing payment processing
optimization and continuous improvement. The demonstrated savings opportunities of 18-27%
for account type optimization, 15-22% for merchant category optimization, and 35-42% for fraud
prevention collectively represent significant value creation for the payment processing ecosystem.|### Comprehensive Data Science Report: Payment Processing Optimization
#### 1. Executive Summary
Analysis of 23 million+ payment transactions reveals significant cost optimization opportunities
through strategic fee management, fraud reduction, and acquirer selection. Key findings:
- Average processing fee: 2.25% of transaction value
- Fraud rate: 0.97% overall with substantial variation by category
- Cross-border transactions carry 0.83% fee premium and 1.42% higher fraud risk
- Top 3 high-fee merchant categories: Digital Goods (3.8%), Travel Services (3.2%), Electronics
(2.9%)
- Top 3 high-fraud categories: Digital Goods (4.2%), Gift Cards (3.8%), Luxury Goods (2.7%)
#### 2. Fee Structure Analysis
**Key drivers of payment processing fees:**
- **Merchant Category:** Digital goods merchants pay highest fees (3.8% average)
- **Transaction Size:** Smaller transactions (<$50) incur highest relative fees (3.1% vs 1.6% for
>$1000)
- **Card Type:** Premium cards (Platinum/Black) cost merchants 0.7-1.2% more than standard
cards
- **Cross-Border Premium:** International transactions cost 0.83% more than domestic
- **Acquirer Location:** Transactions processed through certain countries (CY, MT, LU) show
0.5-0.7% higher fees
**Fee Optimization Opportunities:**
1. Implement category-specific pricing tiers
2. Bundle small transactions (<$50) into larger settlements
3. Negotiate lower rates for premium card transactions
4. Develop domestic processing alternatives for cross-border transactions
#### 3. Fraud Pattern Analysis
**High-risk factors:**
- **Digital goods** show 4.2% fraud rate (4.3× overall average)
- **Cross-border transactions** have 1.42% higher fraud incidence
- **Larger transactions** (>$500) show 2.1% fraud rate vs 0.8% for <$100
- **Card types:** Virtual/prepaid cards show 1.8× higher fraud rates
- **CVV absence:** Transactions without CVV have 3.2× higher fraud risk
**Fraud Reduction Strategies:**
1. Implement enhanced verification for digital goods merchants
2. Apply transaction limits and velocity checks for cross-border payments
3. Require CVV verification for transactions >$200
4. Develop ML-based fraud scoring models targeting high-risk categories
#### 4. Acquirer Selection Analysis
**Cost-Risk Tradeoffs by Location:**
| Acquirer Country | Avg Fee | Fraud Rate | Volume |
|------------------|---------|------------|--------|
| Germany (DE) | 2.05% | 0.82% | 32% |
| France (FR) | 2.12% | 0.91% | 28% |
| Cyprus (CY) | 2.63% | 1.24% | 8% |
| Luxembourg (LU) | 2.58% | 1.31% | 6% |
**Acquirer Optimization Strategies:**
1. Shift volume from high-cost acquirers (CY/LU) to DE/FR where possible
2. Implement multi-acquirer routing based on transaction profile
3. Negotiate volume-based discounts with primary acquirers
4. Develop failover systems to maintain uptime during routing changes
#### 5. Merchant-Specific Recommendations
**Digital Goods Merchants (High Fee, High Fraud):**
- Implement 3D Secure for all transactions
- Negotiate flat-rate pricing instead of percentage-based
- Introduce micro-transaction pricing tiers
- Deploy behavioral biometrics for fraud prevention
**Retail Merchants (Medium Fee, Low Fraud):**
- Implement transaction size-based fee optimization
- Encourage standard card usage through loyalty programs
- Batch small transactions for processing efficiency
- Adopt address verification for high-value items
**Service Providers (Low Fee, Medium Fraud):**
- Implement recurring billing optimization
- Develop CVV-required policy for new customers
- Introduce cross-border fee disclosures
- Use predictive analytics for chargeback prevention
#### 6. Implementation Roadmap
1. **Phase 1 (0-3 months):** Implement high-impact fee optimizations (acquirer routing,
category-based pricing)
2. **Phase 2 (3-6 months):** Deploy fraud reduction systems (CVV enforcement, ML scoring)
3. **Phase 3 (6-12 months):** Develop advanced optimization (dynamic pricing, behavioral
biometrics)
**Expected Results:**
- 18-22% reduction in payment processing costs ($4.2-5.1M annually)
- 25-30% reduction in fraud losses ($1.8-2.2M annually)
- 1.5-2% improvement in conversion rates through optimized checkout flows
- Enhanced merchant satisfaction through tailored payment solutions
This comprehensive analysis provides actionable pathways to optimize payment processing
economics while maintaining security and conversion performance. Implementation should be
prioritized based on merchant-specific profiles and transaction patterns.|Below is the comprehensive report generated by our analysis:
------------------------------------------------------------
Data Science Report on Payment Transaction Dataset Analysis
------------------------------------------------------------
Overview:
This analysis examined fee structures, fraud patterns, and transaction characteristics from the
payment transaction dataset to identify strategies for cost optimization while preserving security
and conversion rates. Multiple data sources—fee details (fees.json), acquirer information
(acquirer_countries.csv), merchant profiles (merchant_data.json), merchant category codes
(merchant_category_codes.csv), and transaction records (payments.csv)—were integrated for a
robust view.
Key Findings:
-------------
1. Fee Structure Drivers:
- Summary statistics indicate that fees correlate strongly with transaction amounts. High-value
transactions incur higher absolute fees, despite relatively stable fee percentages. This pattern
suggests that the fee structure is largely volume-driven.
- Fees.json data reveal that some acquirers apply additional fixed charges, exposing opportunities
for negotiations or alternative pricing models.
2. Fraud Pattern Analysis:
- Transactions flagged as fraudulent exhibit higher fee volatility and, occasionally, an elevated fee-
to-amount ratio. This may stem from extra chargeback or remediation costs.
- By isolating transactions with fraud flags, merchants can explore risk-based pricing strategies that
weigh fraud prevention costs against processing efficiency.
3. Acquirer Selection Strategies:
- Analysis of fee performance by acquirer shows significant variability. Certain acquirers,
especially those active in lower-risk regions, offer more competitive fee structures.
- When acquirer data is merged with country-level information, geographical differences in fee
formulations become apparent. This analysis suggests that merchants should strategically select
acquirers based on their target market’s risk profile and fee competitiveness.
4. Merchant Category and Profile Insights:
- Merging merchant transaction data with merchant category codes indicates that some merchant
categories (e.g., high-ticket retail or service sectors) face disproportionately high fees.
- Merchant profile variables such as business size, transaction volume, and risk ratings (obtained
from merchant_data.json) greatly influence fee structures and fraud vulnerability. Tailored
strategies are thus needed depending on the merchant profile.
Actionable Recommendations:
-----------------------------
1. Optimizing Fee Structures:
- Negotiate with acquirers to reduce fixed fees, particularly for high-volume transactions. Consider
shifting to pricing models that reward transaction efficiency.
- Explore dynamic fee assessments where lower-risk, high-value transactions benefit from a
reduced per-transaction fee.
2. Fraud Risk Mitigation:
- Enhance fraud detection methods, especially for segments identified as high risk, potentially
using machine learning-based anomaly detection before transactions are processed.
- Implement risk-based fee adjustments that incorporate security costs for transactions with higher
fraud potential.
3. Tailored Acquirer Selection:
- For merchants with international operations, perform data-driven assessments to select acquirers
with optimal fee structures within target markets.
- Continuously monitor acquirer performance (fee levels, fraud management, dispute resolution)
to ensure ongoing cost effectiveness.
4. Merchant-Specific Strategies:
- Small and medium-sized merchants should prioritize robust fraud prevention tools to reduce
exposure while controlling costs.
- High-volume merchants can leverage their scale for negotiating volume discounts or dedicated
agreements that improve fee structures.
Conclusion:
-----------
The analysis indicates that careful management of fee structures and acquirer selection—
combined with proactive fraud detection—can result in significant cost savings without
compromising security or conversion rates. Tailoring these recommendations based on merchant-
specific and regional nuances offers practical pathways for reducing overall payment processing
costs.
Next Steps:
-----------
- Further investigate temporal trends to refine dynamic pricing strategies.
- Invest in machine learning models for real-time fraud prediction and transaction scoring.
- Regularly re-assess acquirer agreements and fee strategies in light of evolving transaction data.
By implementing these recommendations, merchants can optimize payment processing fees while
maintaining robust security and enhancing conversion outcomes.| + + + +_Figure 12._ A data analysis case of autonomous data science, from data sources to analyst-grade research reports. + +--- end of page.page_number=20 --- + +|**Instruction**|**DeepAnalyze-8B**|**Deepseek-r1**|**o3-mini**| +|---|---|---|---| +|Analyze the provided payments
dataset and supporting
documentation to produce a
comprehensive data insight report.
The report should identify the
primary drivers of transaction costs
and fraud risk for the merchants.
Investigate how factors such as
transaction characteristics (e.g.,
ACI, card scheme, amount),
merchant profiles (e.g., account
type, MCC, acquirer choice), and
behavioral patterns (e.g., time of
day, cross-border activity) influence
processing fees and fraudulent
disputes. The goal is to derive
actionable insights that can help
merchants optimize their payment
configurations and operational
practices to minimize costs and
mitigate risk.|# Comprehensive Analysis of Payment Processing Fees and Fraud Risk Factors
## Executive Summary
This comprehensive analysis examines the intricate relationship between payment transaction
characteristics, merchant profiles, and resulting processing fees and fraud risk. Through systematic
analysis of over 23 million payment transactions across 30 merchant accounts, we identify key
drivers of transaction costs and fraud risk. The study reveals that card scheme selection accounts
for 68% of fee variation, while merchant category codes influence 42% of fraud risk profiles. Our
findings demonstrate that strategic configuration of payment processing parameters can reduce
costs by 18-22% while simultaneously decreasing fraudulent dispute rates by 14-17%.
## Methodology and Data Overview
The analysis leverages a comprehensive dataset comprising 23,028,700 payment transactions
processed through multiple acquirer networks between January 2022 and December 2023. The
dataset includes detailed transaction-level attributes including card scheme (Visa, Mastercard,
Amex, etc.), authorization characteristics (ACI codes), merchant category codes, and transaction
timing patterns. Merchant profiles include account types (Platform - Franchise, Retail, etc.),
capture delay settings, and historical fraud patterns. Fee structures were extracted from 1,000
distinct fee rules governing processing costs.
Statistical analysis employed multivariate regression modeling, decision tree analysis for fraud
pattern identification, and cost-benefit optimization modeling. Machine learning techniques
including random forest classification achieved 89.3% accuracy in predicting fraudulent
transactions when incorporating both transaction attributes and merchant profiles. The analysis
controlled for seasonal variations, economic conditions, and geographic factors affecting payment
patterns.
## Key Findings on Cost Drivers
### Card Scheme and Authorization Characteristics
Card scheme selection emerges as the most significant determinant of processing costs,
accounting for 68% of fee variation according to our regression analysis. Visa transactions
averaged €0.1154 in fixed fees compared to €0.0833 for debit card transactions (p<0.001).
Authorization Characteristics Indicators (ACI) showed particularly strong cost implications, with
ACI 'B' transactions (Card Not Present - 3-D Secure) incurring 23% higher fees than ACI 'A'
(Card Present) transactions. The table below illustrates the cost differential by authorization type:
| ACI Code | Description | Fixed Fee (€) | Variable Rate (bps) |
|----------|-------------|-----------------|---------------------|
| A | Card Present | 0.092 | 38.2 |
| B | 3-D Secure | 0.115 | 42.7 |
| C | Tokenized | 0.103 | 40.1 |
| D | Card On File | 0.121 | 45.3 |
| E | Recurring | 0.087 | 36.8 |
Merchant category codes demonstrated significant impact on both costs and fraud risk. Retail
merchants (MCC 5812) experienced 28% higher fraud rates than hospitality merchants (MCC
7999), while wholesale distributors (MCC 7372) enjoyed 19% lower dispute rates. Account type
proved equally impactful, with Platform Franchise accounts incurring 12% lower fees than Retail
accounts for equivalent transactions. The analysis identified three optimal fee optimization
opportunities yielding 18-22% cost savings through strategic configuration of payment
parameters.
## Fraud Risk Patterns and Mitigation Strategies
Fraud risk patterns revealed distinct behavioral signatures across merchant segments. Cross-border
transactions (>15% of volume from non-primary markets) showed 37% higher fraud rates, while
transactions occurring outside normal business hours demonstrated 29% elevated risk. Machine
learning models identified four key fraud indicators with predictive accuracy exceeding 85%:
1. Device fingerprint mismatch (92% predictive power)
2. IP country mismatch (87% predictive power)
3. Transaction velocity anomalies (83% predictive power)
4. Historical fraud profile deviation (81% predictive power)
Merchant-specific risk profiles varied significantly by account type and category. Platform
Franchise accounts demonstrated 19% lower fraud rates than Retail accounts for equivalent
transaction profiles, while Hospitality merchants showed 23% better fraud prevention outcomes
than Retail merchants. The analysis identified three optimal fraud prevention strategies yielding
14-17% reduction in fraudulent dispute rates through behavioral pattern optimization.
## Strategic Recommendations
### Cost Optimization Opportunities
Strategic configuration of payment parameters can yield significant cost savings while
maintaining service quality. Our analysis identifies three primary optimization opportunities:
1. Authorization Strategy Optimization:
- Shift 30% of ACI 'D' (Card On File) transactions to ACI 'E' (Recurring) for 12-15% cost
reduction
- Implement tokenization for 60% of card-not-present transactions to reduce fees by 8-10%
- Consolidate card schemes to two optimal options per merchant profile
2. Merchant Configuration Optimization:
- Align capture delay settings with business cycles (18% cost reduction)
- Optimize acquirer bank selection based on volume tiers (12-15% savings)
- Implement volume-based pricing tiers (9-11% savings)
3. Fraud Prevention Optimization:
- Implement behavioral pattern monitoring (14-17% fraud reduction)
- Optimize fraud rules by merchant segment (12-15% reduction)
- Implement dynamic fraud thresholds (10-13% reduction)
The comprehensive cost-benefit analysis demonstrates that implementation of these strategies can
yield 22-25% reduction in processing costs while simultaneously reducing fraudulent dispute rates
by 17-20%. The analysis further identifies specific configuration recommendations for each
merchant segment based on account type, volume profile, and risk tolerance.
## Conclusion and Future Research Directions
This comprehensive analysis demonstrates the significant impact of strategic payment processing
configuration on both cost efficiency and risk management. The findings challenge conventional
wisdom regarding fixed fee structures, demonstrating that dynamic, data-driven configuration of
payment parameters can yield substantial improvements in both financial and risk outcomes.
Future research should explore the integration of emerging technologies including AI-driven
authorization decisioning and real-time fraud prevention systems. The demonstrated
methodologies provide a framework for continuous optimization of payment processing strategies
in an increasingly complex and competitive marketplace.|Based on the analysis performed, here are the key insights into transaction cost drivers and fraud
risk factors:
### 1. Primary Transaction Cost Drivers
- **Card Scheme Impact**: Visa transactions show significantly higher average fees (€X.XX)
compared to Mastercard (€X.XX)
- **Cross-Border Premium**: Cross-border transactions incur XX% higher fees on average
compared to domestic transactions
- **Account Type Differences**: Premium merchant accounts show XX% lower fee percentages
than standard accounts
- **ACI Influence**: High ACI scores correlate with XX% lower fees due to reduced risk
surcharges
### 2. Fraud Risk Patterns
- **Temporal Patterns**: Highest dispute rates occur between [XX:XX-XX:XX] local time
- **Card Brand Variation**: [Card Brand] shows XX% higher dispute rates than others
- **MCC Risk Profile**: MCC codes [X] and [Y] show XX% higher fraud rates than average
- **Cross-Border Risk**: Cross-border transactions have XX% higher dispute rates
### 3. Fee Optimization Opportunities
- **MCC-Scheme Combinations**: [Scheme] + [MCC Description] shows XX% lower fees than
alternatives
- **Acquirer Selection**: Transactions routed through [Acquirer] show XX% lower fees
- **Volume Discounts**: Merchants processing >€XX/month qualify for XX% fee reductions
### 4. Operational Recommendations
1. Implement dynamic routing to prioritize [Scheme] for MCC [X] transactions
2. Add fraud screening enhancements during high-risk hours [XX:XX-XX:XX]
3. Migrate high-volume merchants to premium accounts for fee savings
4. Implement geolocation checks to flag high-risk cross-border patterns
The analysis reveals significant optimization potential through strategic payment configuration
adjustments and targeted fraud controls. Further segmentation by merchant size and transaction
volume could yield additional insights.|Below is a summary of the insights derived from our exploratory data analysis of the payments
dataset and supporting documentation:
─────────────────────────────
1. Transaction Characteristics & Card Scheme
─────────────────────────────
• Our aggregation by card scheme shows that different brands can exhibit distinct behaviors. For
instance, some card schemes are associated with higher average transaction amounts while others
show a higher incidence (fraud rate) of fraudulent disputes. This suggests that merchants
accepting cards from schemes with higher fraud rates may face increased processing fees due to
the additional risk.
• Recommendation: Merchants can investigate alternative card acceptance strategies (or enforce
stricter verification methods) for cards linked to historically higher fraud incidences; additionally,
pricing or insurance adjustments may be considered.
─────────────────────────────
2. Behavioral Patterns: Time of Day
─────────────────────────────
• Analysis by the hour of the day indicates that fraud incidents are not uniformly distributed.
Certain time slots (hours with higher fraud rates) are linked either to lower volumes or less
predictability in transactions. Such time windows could be targeted for enhanced monitoring and
fraud prevention controls.
• Recommendation: Merchant operations can consider operating additional fraud screening
measures during peak fraud risk hours, optimizing staffing decisions or real-time risk analytics at
these times.
─────────────────────────────
3. Cross-Border Activity
─────────────────────────────
• When investigating the role of cross-border versus domestic transactions, the data reveals that
cross-border transactions tend to have different fee profiles and may encounter higher fraud rates.
This may be due to additional banking and regulatory complexities or differences in consumer
verification processes across countries.
• Recommendation: Merchants with substantial cross-border activity should focus on localizing
fraud prevention mechanisms, possibly integrating additional identity verification tools tailored to
international transactions, and reassessing fee configurations offered by acquirers regarding
international payments.
─────────────────────────────
4. Merchant Profiles and Operational Practices
─────────────────────────────
• By merging merchant profiles (from merchant_data.json) with transactions data, we identified
that merchant account type influences both transaction volumes and fraud incidence. For
instance, certain account types (potentially tied to higher risk industry classifications or MCC
codes) exhibit higher fraud rates alongside varying average transaction amounts.
• Recommendation: Merchants should review their merchant account profiles and consider if
their current configurations, acquirer choices, and business practices (such as transaction volume
patterns) are aligned with their risk tolerance. Further collaboration with acquirers on fee
structures that account for these risk profiles might help optimize processing costs.
─────────────────────────────
5. Additional Considerations: Fee Structures
─────────────────────────────
• Although the direct linkage between fee configuration (from fees.json) and transaction
characteristics was not explicitly modeled due to integration challenges, the available fee data
suggests that fee structures can vary based on parameters such as card scheme, transaction
amount, and risk profile.
• Recommendation: A further detailed analysis that integrates fee configurations with live
transactional data can uncover more granular relationships. Merchants may leverage such insights
to negotiate better fee agreements or adjust internal practices (e.g., reducing cross-border fraud
through better verification) that, in turn, optimize their fee liabilities.
─────────────────────────────
Final Summary:
─────────────────────────────
The analysis indicates that transaction characteristics (e.g. card scheme and transaction amount),
behavioral patterns (e.g. time-of-day and cross-border activity), and merchant-specific factors
(account type, MCC) all contribute as primary drivers of processing fees and fraud risk.
Merchants are advised to:
• Review card scheme mixtures and target risk mitigation strategies for higher-risk cards.
• Enhance fraud monitoring during identified high-risk hours.
• Implement tighter fraud controls for cross-border transactions.
• Reassess merchant profiles and operational configurations to align with fee structures and risk
profiles.
These insights offer actionable directions for merchants aiming to optimize their payment
configurations while controlling costs and mitigating risks.
─────────────────────────────
This comprehensive view reinforces that an integrated approach, using both transaction and
merchant profile data alongside fee configurations, is critical for reducing exposure to fraud and
managing processing costs effectively.| + + + +_Figure 13._ A data insight case of autonomous data science, from data sources to analyst-grade research reports. + +--- end of page.page_number=21 --- + +|**Instruction**|**DeepAnalyze-8B**|**Deepseek-r1**|**o3-mini**| +|---|---|---|---| +|Based on the provided data (manual.md,
payments.csv, merchant_data.json,
fees.json, acquirer_countries.csv,
merchant_category_codes.csv), generate a
comprehensive **Data Report** analyzing
the payment processing operations for the
merchants. The report must follow the
exact structure and content outline
specified below.
# Strategic Recommendations Report:
Payment Processing Analysis
## 1. Executive Summary
- Provide a high-level overview of key
findings and most critical
recommendations.
- Summarize overall performance, cost
efficiency, and fraud risk levels.
## 2. Introduction
- State the purpose and scope of the
analysis.
- Briefly describe the merchants and time
period covered.
## 3. Data Sources and Quality
- List and describe all data sources used in
the analysis.
- Assess data completeness, accuracy, and
any limitations encountered.
## 4. Analytical Approach
- Explain the methodology used for fee
calculation and cost analysis.
- Describe how fraud risk and processing
efficiency were evaluated.
- Outline the criteria for identifying
optimization opportunities.
## 5. Findings
### 5.1 Transaction Volume and Patterns
- Analyze transaction volumes by
merchant, time, and card scheme.
- Identify seasonal trends and peak
processing periods.
### 5.2 Fee Structure Analysis
- Calculate and compare processing costs
across different merchants.
- Identify the most expensive fee
components and their drivers.
- Analyze how merchant characteristics
affect fee rates.
### 5.3 Fraud and Risk Assessment
- Evaluate fraud rates and dispute patterns.
- Assess the effectiveness of current fraud
prevention measures.
- Identify high-risk transaction types and
merchants.
### 5.4 Processing Efficiency
- Analyze authorization rates and refusal
patterns.
- Evaluate acquirer selection and routing
efficiency.
- Assess capture delay practices and their
cost implications.
## 6. Limitations
- Discuss any data constraints or
methodological limitations.
- Identify areas where additional data
would improve analysis.
## 7. Strategic Recommendations
### 7.1 Cost Optimization Strategies
- Specific recommendations for reducing
processing fees.
- Suggestions for optimizing transaction
routing and acquirer selection.
### 7.2 Fraud Prevention Improvements
- Recommendations for enhancing security
measures.
- Strategies for reducing fraud-related costs
and chargebacks.
### 7.3 Operational Efficiency
Enhancements
- Suggestions for improving authorization
rates and reducing refusals.
- Recommendations for optimizing
capture timing and settlement processes.
## 8. Conclusion
- Summarize key insights and expected
benefits of implemented
recommendations.
- Outline next steps for implementation
and monitoring.
## 9. Bibliography
- List all referenced documents, manuals,
and data sources.
## 10. Appendix
- Include supporting tables, charts, and
detailed calculations.
- Provide merchant-specific analysis and
recommendations.
Ensure the report is data-driven, with
specific metrics and calculations
supporting all findings and
recommendations. Use clear, professional
language suitable for business
stakeholders.|# Strategic Recommendations Report: Payment Processing Analysis
## 1. Executive Summary
This comprehensive analysis of payment processing operations reveals significant opportunities for cost optimization and
operational improvement. The dataset encompasses 1,000 transactions across 30 merchants, with an average processing
fee of €0.6574 per transaction, comprising €0.8058 in fixed fees and €6.3354 in variable rate fees per €10,000 processed.
The analysis identifies three primary areas for strategic improvement: fee structure optimization (35% potential savings),
fraud prevention enhancement (22% reduction target), and operational efficiency gains (15% improvement). Merchant
segmentation reveals significant variation in fee structures, with cross-border transactions averaging 18% higher fees than
domestic transactions. The data demonstrates that 23% of transactions exhibit characteristics warranting enhanced fraud
controls, while 17% of merchants operate with suboptimal acquirer relationships. These findings enable targeted
interventions to improve profitability while maintaining service quality.
## 2. Introduction
This report analyzes payment processing operations for a network of 30 merchants across multiple European countries,
covering transaction data from 2023. The analysis incorporates transactional records, merchant attributes, fee structures,
and acquirer relationships to evaluate operational efficiency and identify optimization opportunities. The dataset includes
1,000 sampled transactions with an average value of €87.42, representing €87,420 in total processed volume. Merchant
categories span retail (42%), hospitality (23%), and professional services (35%), with merchant category codes following
ISO 8583 standards. The analysis period covers a complete calendar year, capturing seasonal patterns and business cycle
effects. Data quality assessment indicates 98.7% completeness in critical fields, with missing values concentrated in
optional fields like email addresses (1.3% missing). The methodology combines quantitative analysis of transaction
patterns with rule-based fee calculations against the 1,000 fee rules in the system.
## 3. Data Sources and Quality
The analysis integrates six primary data sources, each contributing unique dimensions to the payment processing
analysis. The payments dataset forms the transactional foundation, containing 21 fields capturing merchant, card
scheme, timing, and amount details. Merchant attributes from merchant_data.json provide 5 key attributes per merchant,
while fees.json contains 1,000 complex fee rules with 12 conditional fields each. Merchant category codes provide
standardized industry classifications, and acquirer countries map 8 payment processors to their respective countries. Data
quality assessment reveals excellent completeness (98.2% complete records) with minimal missing values concentrated in
optional fields. The fee rules demonstrate comprehensive coverage, with 92% of transactions matching at least one fee
rule and 78% matching exactly one rule. Validation against business rules in manual.md confirms structural compliance
with payment processing standards. Limitations include the 1,000-transaction sample size and lack of historical
comparisons, though the analysis accounts for these through statistical techniques.
## 4. Analytical Approach
The methodology combines descriptive analytics, predictive modeling, and prescriptive optimization to evaluate payment
processing operations. Fee calculations implement the formula: Fee = FixedAmount + (Rate× TransactionValue /
10,000), applying the first matching rule from 12 conditional dimensions. Fraud risk assessment combines transaction
velocity, geographic patterns, and historical fraud rates using a logistic regression model with AUC-ROC of 0.82.
Processing efficiency metrics include authorization rates (87.3%), refusal rates (9.1%), and capture delay patterns.
Optimization models employ linear programming to identify acquirer routing improvements, achieving 14% simulated
savings. Merchant segmentation uses k-means clustering (k=5) on transaction patterns and fee structures. All analyses
implement 5-fold cross-validation to ensure robustness, with key metrics showing <5% variation across folds. The
approach balances statistical rigor with business interpretability, ensuring actionable insights.
## 5. Findings
### 5.1 Transaction Volume and Patterns
Transaction analysis reveals distinct patterns across merchants, card schemes, and time periods. Volume peaks between
11am-2pm (28% of daily volume) and 6-9pm (31%), with weekday volumes 42% higher than weekends. Cross-border
transactions (issuing country ≠ acquirer country) represent 38% of volume but 53% of fees, averaging €0.72/transaction
versus €0.61 for domestic. Card scheme analysis shows GlobalCard processing 22% more transactions than competitors,
though with 18% higher fees. Merchant category analysis reveals retail merchants process 3.2 transactions/merchant
versus 1.8 for professional services, with average transaction values of €78.42 and €124.57 respectively. Fraud patterns
show 2.1% overall fraud rate, but 4.7% for high-value (>€500) credit card transactions. Seasonal analysis identifies
November peaks (18% above average) and February troughs (23% below average).
### 5.2 Fee Structure Analysis
Fee analysis reveals significant variation across merchants and conditions. The average fee structure contains 4.2
conditional dimensions per rule, with capture delay (32% of rules), merchant category (28%), and card scheme (22%)
being most common conditions. Fixed fees range from €0.05 to €0.25 (mean €0.12), while variable rates range from 15 to
95 basis points (mean 42 bps). Merchant segmentation identifies three distinct fee profiles: low-volume/high-margin (12
merchants), volume-driven (15 merchants), and cross-border focused (3 merchants). Fee optimization modeling identifies
potential savings of €1,200 annually through acquirer routing changes alone. Intracountry transactions enjoy 18% lower
fees on average, suggesting substantial routing optimization opportunities. The analysis identifies 7 merchants operating
with suboptimal acquirer relationships, representing €8,400 in potential savings.
### 5.3 Fraud and Risk Assessment
Fraud analysis identifies four high-risk merchant categories: travel (7.2% fraud rate), electronics (6.8%), retail (5.1%), and
hospitality (4.9%). Transaction velocity analysis flags 23% of transactions exceeding historical norms, while geographic
analysis identifies 17% of transactions with unusual country mismatches. Machine learning models predict fraud with
82% accuracy, identifying 14% of transactions requiring manual review. Capture delay analysis shows merchants with >7
day delays experience 38% higher chargebacks. Fraud prevention improvements could reduce losses by €1,200 annually
through enhanced velocity checks and 3D Secure implementation. The analysis identifies 8 merchants with suboptimal
fraud controls, representing €9,800 in potential savings.
### 5.4 Processing Efficiency
Authorization analysis reveals 87.3% authorization rates, with debit cards (92%) outperforming credit (82%). Refusal
analysis identifies acquirer routing as primary cause (63%), followed by card scheme restrictions (22%) and merchant
limits (15%). Capture delay analysis shows merchants with <3 day delays achieve 28% lower dispute rates. Settlement
timing analysis identifies 17% of merchants settling >T+5, correlating with 31% higher late fees. Routing optimization
modeling identifies €1,400 in potential savings through acquirer reassignment. Authorization rate improvements could
yield €2,100 annually through improved merchant training. The analysis identifies 12 merchants with suboptimal
processing practices, representing €15,200 in potential savings.
## 6. Limitations
The analysis faces several constraints requiring cautious interpretation. The 1,000-transaction sample, while
representative, may not capture extreme values adequately. The static fee rules don't account for dynamic pricing,
potentially underestimating elasticity. Fraud models lack real-time transaction data, potentially missing emerging
patterns. The merchant segmentation uses only 5 features, potentially oversimplifying complex business models. The
analysis period covers one calendar year, limiting seasonal comparisons. Data limitations include missing merchant bank
account details and limited historical benchmarking. The fee optimization models assume static merchant volumes,
while actual volumes may fluctuate. These limitations are mitigated through conservative confidence intervals and
sensitivity analysis. Future research could incorporate real-time data streams and machine learning for dynamic pricing.
## 7. Strategic Recommendations
### 7.1 Cost Optimization Strategies
Fee optimization should prioritize three initiatives: acquirer routing (€1,400 potential), fee structure review (€1,200), and
capture delay reduction (€1,500). Merchant-specific analysis identifies 7 merchants with €8,400 in routing savings and 3
with €9,800 in fraud prevention improvements. The analysis recommends implementing dynamic routing algorithms to
capture 12% of potential savings automatically. Fee structure review should focus on cross-border transactions, where
fees average 18% higher. Capture delay improvements should target merchants with >7 day delays, potentially saving
€2,100 annually. The implementation roadmap prioritizes quick wins (routing) before complex changes (fee
restructuring). The projected 28% annual savings (€38,900) delivers 3:1 ROI within 6 months. The program should
include ongoing monitoring with monthly KPIs and quarterly reviews.
### 7.2 Fraud Prevention Improvements
Fraud prevention should prioritize three areas: velocity controls (€1,200 potential), 3D Secure implementation (€900),
and merchant training (€700). The analysis identifies 8 merchants with €9,800 in fraud prevention improvements.
Velocity controls should focus on high-value merchants (>$500 transactions), where fraud rates peak at 4.7%. 3D Secure
implementation should target credit card transactions, where fraud rates peak at 5.1%. Merchant training should focus on
high-risk categories (travel, electronics). The implementation roadmap prioritizes quick wins (velocity controls) before
complex changes (3D Secure). The projected 22% reduction in fraud losses (€2,100) delivers 3:1 ROI within 9 months.
The program should include real-time monitoring with daily dashboards and weekly reviews.
### 7.3 Operational Efficiency Enhancements
Processing efficiency should prioritize three areas: authorization rates (€2,100 potential), settlement timing (€1,500), and
acquirer selection (€1,400). The analysis identifies 12 merchants with €15,200 in processing improvements.
Authorization rate improvements should focus on credit card transactions, where rates lag debit by 10 percentage points.
Settlement timing should target merchants with >T+5 delays, where fees peak at 31% higher. Acquirer selection should
focus on cross-border transactions, where fees peak at 18% higher. The implementation roadmap prioritizes quick wins
(authorization training) before complex changes (acquirer reassignment). The projected 15% improvement (€22,700)
delivers 3:1 ROI within 12 months. The program should include real-time monitoring with daily dashboards and
monthly reviews.
## 8. Conclusion
This comprehensive analysis identifies substantial opportunities to improve payment processing operations through data-
driven optimization. The findings demonstrate that strategic interventions can yield €38,900 in annual savings (28% of
current costs) while improving service quality. The recommended initiatives combine quick wins with longer-term
transformations, delivering measurable improvements across cost, risk, and efficiency metrics. Implementation requires
cross-functional collaboration between operations, risk, and finance teams. The proposed roadmap balances immediate
action with sustainable transformation, ensuring lasting impact. The analysis provides the foundation for ongoing
performance management, with recommended metrics for continuous improvement. Future research should incorporate
real-time data streams and machine learning for dynamic optimization. The findings demonstrate the transformative
potential of data analytics in payment processing operations.
## 9. Bibliography
Merchant Guide to Optimizing Payment Processing and Minimizing Fees (v2.1, November 2024)
Payment Processing Standards (ISO 8583:2021)
Merchant Category Code Reference (v3.2, October 2024)
Acquirer Country Mapping (v1.5, September 2024)
Fee Rule Specifications (v2.0, August 2024)
Data Dictionary (v1.0, July 2024)
## 10. Appendix
Appendix A: Merchant Segmentation Details
Appendix B: Fee Rule Matching Algorithm
Appendix C: Fraud Model Specifications
Appendix D: Optimization Model Parameters
Appendix E: Implementation Roadmaps
Appendix F: Detailed Merchant Analysis
Appendix G: Technical Specifications|I'll analyze the data and prepare the comprehensive report based on the code execution results. Here's the report:
### Strategic Recommendations Report: Payment Processing Analysis
#### 1. Executive Summary
- Overall transaction processing shows moderate efficiency with an authorization rate of 82.3%
- Fraud rate is concerning at 3.5%, significantly impacting revenue
- Dispute rate of 1.2% indicates potential customer satisfaction issues
- Highest costs come from interchange fees (average 0.45% per transaction)
- Capture delay shows room for improvement with average 1.8 hours between creation and capture
#### 2. Introduction
- Analysis covers payment processing for multiple merchants over an unspecified period
- Purpose: Identify cost optimization, fraud reduction, and efficiency improvements
- Scope: Transaction patterns, fee structures, fraud assessment, and processing efficiency
#### 3. Data Sources and Quality
- **payments.csv (23MB):** Core transaction data with authorization status, fraud flags, and timestamps
- **merchant_data.json (6.7KB):** Merchant profiles including IDs and categories
- **fees.json (518.7KB):** Detailed fee structures by merchant and transaction type
- **acquirer_countries.csv (0.2KB):** Acquirer country codes and names
- **merchant_category_codes.csv (26KB):** MCC category descriptions
- **Limitations:** Date range not specified in sample data; merchant names not included
#### 4. Analytical Approach
- Fee calculation: Summed interchange, scheme, and acquirer fee components
- Fraud risk: Calculated fraud and dispute rates; identified high-risk merchants
- Processing efficiency: Analyzed authorization rates, refusal reasons, and capture delays
- Optimization criteria: Cost reduction potential, fraud mitigation impact, and efficiency gains
#### 5. Findings
##### 5.1 Transaction Volume and Patterns
- Transaction distribution:
- Visa: 38% of transactions
- Mastercard: 35%
- American Express: 27%
- Strong seasonal patterns: 15% higher volume in December
- Daily peak: 3-4 PM (18% of daily transactions)
##### 5.2 Fee Structure Analysis
- Most expensive components:
1. Cross-border interchange fee (0.32%)
2. Scheme fee (0.25%)
3. Acquirer markup (0.18%)
- Fee variations by merchant size: Smaller merchants pay 22% higher fees on average
- High-MCC merchants (hotels, car rentals) incur 30% higher fees
##### 5.3 Fraud and Risk Assessment
- Highest fraud rates by merchant:
- Merchant X: 8.2%
- Merchant Y: 6.7%
- Merchant Z: 5.9%
- Card scheme fraud rates:
- American Express: 4.8%
- Visa: 3.1%
- Mastercard: 2.9%
##### 5.4 Processing Efficiency
- Authorization rate: 82.3%
- Top refusal reasons:
- Insufficient funds: 45%
- Suspected fraud: 30%
- Invalid card: 15%
- Capture delay statistics:
- Mean: 1.8 hours
- Max: 48 hours
- 90th percentile: 5 hours
#### 6. Limitations
- No transaction amount data for precise revenue impact calculation
- Limited merchant details prevent granular category analysis
- Time period not specified limits trend analysis
- Missing chargeback data for complete fraud assessment
#### 7. Strategic Recommendations
##### 7.1 Cost Optimization Strategies
- Negotiate interchange fees for high-volume merchants (potential 15% savings)
- Implement MCC optimization for high-cost categories
- Consolidate acquirer relationships to reduce markup fees
##### 7.2 Fraud Prevention Improvements
- Introduce machine learning fraud scoring for high-risk merchants
- Implement 3D Secure for American Express transactions
- Create merchant-specific fraud thresholds based on historical patterns
##### 7.3 Operational Efficiency Enhancements
- Optimize transaction routing to acquirers with >90% authorization rates
- Implement automated retry system for \"insufficient funds\" declines
- Reduce capture delay target to 1 hour (potential 0.2% fee reduction)
#### 8. Conclusion
- Implementing recommendations could reduce processing costs by 18-22%
- Fraud reduction initiatives could save $500K+ annually for mid-sized merchants
- Efficiency improvements could increase revenue capture by 5-7%
- Next steps: Prioritize cost optimization and fraud prevention for highest-impact merchants
#### 9. Bibliography
1. Payment Processing Manual (manual.md)
2. Transaction Data (payments.csv)
3. Merchant Profiles (merchant_data.json)
4. Fee Schedule (fees.json)
5. Acquirer Reference (acquirer_countries.csv)
6. MCC Reference (merchant_category_codes.csv)
#### 10. Appendix
- Detailed fee analysis by merchant available upon request
- Fraud pattern charts by card scheme and time of day
- Capture delay distribution histogram
- Acquirer performance comparison table
This report provides data-driven insights to optimize payment operations, reduce costs, and mitigate fraud risks across
your merchant portfolio.|Below is the comprehensive Data Report generated based on the analysis of the provided payment processing data:
Strategic Recommendations Report: Payment Processing Analysis
1. Executive Summary
------------------------------------------------------------------
- Key Findings:
- Total Transactions Processed: [Extracted from payments.csv]
- Merchants Covered: [Extracted from payments.csv]
- Significant variation noted in fee components and processing times.
- Recommendations:
- Optimize acquirer selection and fee structures.
- Enhance fraud detection measures for high-risk transaction types.
2. Introduction
------------------------------------------------------------------
- Purpose: To analyze payment processing operations with an emphasis on cost efficiency, risk, and operational
performance.
- Scope: The analysis covers multiple merchants over the time period as indicated in the transaction data.
3. Data Sources and Quality
------------------------------------------------------------------
- Data Sources:
- manual.md: Operational procedures and system guidelines.
- payments.csv: Transaction records with detailed payment information.
- merchant_data.json: Profiles and characteristics of merchants.
- fees.json: Detailed fee structures per transaction and merchant.
- acquirer_countries.csv: Geographical distribution of acquirers.
- merchant_category_codes.csv: Classification of merchants by business types.
- Data Quality Assessment:
- Payments data is extensive but has some missing fields (e.g., transaction dates) that might impact temporal analyses.
- Fees data provides detailed breakdowns; however, its complexity requires careful reconciliation with merchant profiles.
- Overall, data is adequate for in-depth analysis, though supplementary granular data (especially on fraud incidents)
would further enhance insights.
4. Analytical Approach
------------------------------------------------------------------
- Methodology:
- Fee Calculation: Aggregated fees per merchant were compared to reveal variations in cost efficiency. Major fee drivers
included processing fees, acquirer service charges, and additional service fees.
- Fraud Risk Evaluation: Analyzed fraud indicators via dispute records in the payments data correlated against merchant
risk profiles from merchant_data.json.
- Processing Efficiency: Evaluated key metrics like authorization and capture rates, refusal patterns, and acquirer routing
efficiency using the payments.csv data.
- Optimization Criteria: Identified high fee components, elevated fraud signals, and sub-optimal processing speeds as
primary opportunities for operational improvements.
5. Findings
------------------------------------------------------------------
5.1 Transaction Volume and Patterns
- Total transactions processed: Data from payments.csv shows a large volume across the analyzed period.
- Seasonal trends: Evidence of peaks during promotional periods and seasonal events.
- Card scheme insights: Diverse usage across major card networks (Visa, MasterCard, etc.) indicate varied consumer
behaviors.
5.2 Fee Structure Analysis
- Variability in fee structures: Fees vary notably across merchants, influenced by operational volume and merchant
category.
- Major fee components: Processing fees and acquirer service charges represent the highest cost elements.
- Impact of merchant characteristics: Analysis suggests that merchant category (as indexed in
merchant_category_codes.csv) and volume are key determinants driving fee rates.
5.3 Fraud and Risk Assessment
- Fraud trends: Some segments, particularly those with high transaction volumes, show elevated dispute rates.
- Effectiveness of fraud prevention: Current measures are moderately effective; however, enhanced real-time monitoring
could reduce fraud-related costs.
- High-risk identification: Certain transaction types and specific merchants are flagged for heightened fraud risk.
5.4 Processing Efficiency
- Authorization vs. refusal: Most merchants experience industry-standard authorization rates, though a subset shows
higher refusal numbers.
- Acquirer selection: Analysis based on acquirer_countries.csv reveals potential routing improvements that could lower
fees.
- Capture delays: Delay in capture processes directly adds to cost overheads, suggesting a need for more timely settlement
processes.
6. Limitations
------------------------------------------------------------------
- Data Constraints: Some fields in payments.csv (such as transaction dates) were incomplete or inconsistently formatted,
affecting the precision of time-based analyses.
- Methodological Limitations: Assumptions made during fee aggregation might not fully capture all fee nuances.
- Additional Data: Detailed data on fraud incidents and more granular merchant performance metrics would provide
enhanced clarity.
7. Strategic Recommendations
------------------------------------------------------------------
7.1 Cost Optimization Strategies
- Negotiate fee rates by leveraging merchant’s high-volume statistics to secure better terms.
- Re-evaluate acquirer and transaction routing decisions to identify efficient cost reductions based on regional
performance data from acquirer_countries.csv.
7.2 Fraud Prevention Improvements
- Enhance real-time fraud detection systems and update risk models using detailed merchant data.
- Implement targeted monitoring for high-risk transaction segments identified in the analysis.
7.3 Operational Efficiency Enhancements
- Streamline authorization processes by identifying and mitigating common refusal reasons.
- Reduce capture delays through improved system integration and proactive settlement workflows.
8. Conclusion
------------------------------------------------------------------
- Key Insights: The analysis underscores the need for improvements in reducing processing fees, strengthening fraud
prevention, and enhancing overall operational efficiency.
- Next Steps: Implement the recommended optimizations, closely monitor the outcomes with real-time dashboards, and
continually refine fraud risk models.
9. Bibliography
------------------------------------------------------------------
- manual.md
- payments-readme.md
- payments.csv
- merchant_data.json
- fees.json
- acquirer_countries.csv
- merchant_category_codes.csv
10. Appendix
------------------------------------------------------------------
- Detailed tables and visualizations (e.g., fee breakdowns, seasonal transaction trends, and risk assessments) underpin the
findings.
- Merchant-specific analysis and customized recommendations are available upon request.
This report is data-driven and built upon specific metrics and calculations derived from the provided data sources. The
recommendations are aimed at reducing costs, mitigating fraud risk, and optimizing operational efficiency in the
payment processing environment.| + + + +_Figure 14._ A case of autonomous data science with report constraints. + +--- end of page.page_number=22 --- + +|**Instruction**|**DeepAnalyze-8B**|**Deepseek-r1**|**o3-mini**| +|---|---|---|---| +|Generate a report summarizing any
notable trends, findings, or
summaries in the data.|# Comprehensive Analysis of Payment Processing Data: Trends, Patterns, and Business Insights
## Executive Summary
This comprehensive analysis examines a rich dataset encompassing merchant payment
transactions, fee structures, and merchant characteristics. The study reveals significant insights
into payment processing patterns, fraud risks, and fee optimization opportunities. Through
multidimensional analysis of over 138,000 transactions across 30 merchants, we identify
actionable insights for payment processors and merchants alike. The findings demonstrate
substantial variation in fraud rates (ranging from 1.2% to 18.7% across merchant categories), fee
structures (varying from €0.01 to €0.14 per transaction), and transaction patterns (peak volumes at
12:00-13:00 hours).
## Merchant Category Analysis and Fraud Patterns
The merchant category analysis reveals significant variation in transaction volumes and fraud
rates across different business sectors. The top merchant category (code 7997) accounts for 28.7%
of transactions in our sample, followed by category 7993 (14.3%) and 7372 (14.1%). Fraud rates
show substantial variation across categories, with the highest fraud rates observed in categories
5812 (18.7%) and 5942 (16.9%), compared to the overall average of 6.3%. These findings suggest
that certain merchant categories require enhanced fraud prevention measures and potentially
revised fee structures to account for higher risk profiles.
The temporal analysis of transactions reveals distinct patterns in payment processing. Transaction
volumes peak at midday, with 28.4% of daily transactions occurring between 12:00-13:00 hours,
suggesting that payment processing systems may benefit from capacity planning around these
peak periods. The average transaction amount stands at €91.85, with a right-skewed distribution
(median €55.74), indicating that while most transactions are relatively small, a significant
minority involve substantial amounts exceeding €500.
## Fee Structure and Fee Optimization Opportunities
The fee structure analysis reveals complex, multi-dimensional pricing models that incorporate
merchant category, transaction type, and risk factors. The average fee component consists of a
fixed amount of €0.069 (SD €0.043) plus a variable rate of 54 basis points (SD 25.2 basis points).
However, these averages mask significant variation across merchant categories, with certain high-
risk categories facing fees up to 89 basis points. The data suggests that approximately 32% of fee
rules apply universally (applicable to all merchant categories), while the remaining 68% show
specific category targeting.
The relationship between fraud rates and fee structures reveals opportunities for optimized
pricing. Merchants in high-fraud categories (fraud rates >15%) currently face an average fee
premium of 18.7 basis points compared to low-risk categories. This differential appears justified
by risk, but the analysis suggests potential for more granular risk-based pricing that could better
align fees with actual fraud exposure.
## Fraud Patterns and Risk Management
The fraud analysis reveals significant variation across merchant categories, with fraud rates
ranging from 1.2% to 18.7%. The highest fraud rates appear concentrated in specific merchant
categories (5812 and 5942), suggesting that these sectors may benefit from enhanced fraud
prevention measures. Temporal patterns in fraud show a 12% increase in fraudulent transactions
during holiday periods, suggesting that seasonal fraud prevention measures may be warranted.
The data also reveals that credit card transactions have a 23% higher fraud rate than debit card
transactions, highlighting the importance of differentiated fraud controls.
The analysis of fraudulent dispute patterns reveals that 62% of fraudulent transactions occur
during peak processing hours (10:00-15:00), suggesting that real-time fraud detection systems may
benefit from enhanced monitoring during these periods. The data also shows that merchants with
integrated fraud prevention systems experience 37% lower fraud rates compared to those relying
solely on basic controls, highlighting the value of advanced fraud prevention investments.
## Merchant Performance and Operational Patterns
The merchant performance analysis reveals significant variation in operational patterns across
merchant categories. The top-performing merchants by transaction volume process an average of
487 transactions per day, compared to the overall average of 423 transactions. Merchant category
7997 demonstrates particularly strong performance, with 28% higher transaction volumes than the
category average. The data shows that merchants with integrated payment processing systems
experience 19% higher transaction volumes compared to those using basic payment solutions.
The analysis of merchant category performance reveals that categories 7993 and 7372
demonstrate particularly strong performance metrics, with 22% and 18% higher average
transaction values respectively. These categories also show lower fraud rates (4.1% and 5.3%)
compared to the overall average of 6.3%, suggesting that certain business models may inherently
carry lower fraud risk. The data also reveals that merchants with dedicated payment processing
teams experience 27% lower chargeback rates compared to those managing payments in-house.
## Technical Infrastructure and System Performance
The technical analysis of payment processing systems reveals significant variation in system
performance across merchant categories. Transactions processed through integrated payment
platforms experience 18% faster settlement times compared to those using basic payment
solutions. The data shows that merchants with API-integrated payment systems experience 23%
fewer failed transactions compared to those using basic payment gateways. The analysis reveals
that system performance varies significantly by merchant category, with category 7997
demonstrating particularly strong system performance metrics.
The analysis of system performance during peak periods reveals that merchants with load-
balanced payment processing systems experience 31% fewer system failures during peak hours
compared to those using basic infrastructure. The data shows that merchants with real-time
payment processing systems experience 19% faster settlement times compared to those using
batch processing models. The analysis also reveals that merchants with integrated fraud
prevention systems experience 27% fewer chargebacks compared to those relying solely on basic
fraud controls.
## Strategic Recommendations and Conclusions
Based on the comprehensive analysis, we recommend that payment processors develop category-
specific fee structures that account for the varying risk profiles and operational characteristics of
different merchant categories. The data supports the development of risk-based pricing models
that incorporate merchant category, transaction patterns, and historical fraud rates. The analysis
suggests that implementing category-specific fraud prevention measures could reduce overall fraud
costs by an estimated 18-22%. The findings also support investment in advanced fraud prevention
technologies, particularly for high-risk merchant categories.
The analysis suggests that payment processors should develop category-specific performance
benchmarks to help merchants optimize their payment processing operations. The data supports
the development of category-specific best practice guides that address the unique challenges of
different merchant categories. The findings also suggest that payment processors should develop
category-specific support resources to help merchants optimize their payment processing
operations. The comprehensive nature of this analysis provides a foundation for ongoing research
into payment processing optimization and fraud prevention strategies.|Here's the report summarizing the notable trends and findings from the data analysis:
### 1. Payments Data Summary (payments.csv)
- **Size**: 23,028.7 KB (largest dataset)
- **Rows**: 10,000 (sampled for analysis)
- **Columns**: Found in dataset (specific names not available)
- **Findings**:
- Contains both numerical and categorical columns
- Some categorical columns have distinct value distributions
- Potential date/time columns identified
### 2. Merchant Category Codes (merchant_category_codes.csv)
- **Size**: 26.0 KB
- **Count**: Specific count not available
- **Findings**:
- Contains merchant category codes (MCC)
- Some merchant codes in payments data not found in category file
### 3. Acquirer Countries (acquirer_countries.csv)
- **Size**: 0.2 KB
- **Count**: Specific count not available
- **Findings**:
- Contains country information for payment acquirers
- Shows distribution of top countries
### 4. Merchant Data (merchant_data.json)
- **Size**: 6.7 KB
- **Count**: Specific count not available
- **Findings**:
- Contains merchant information with identifiable keys
- Some merchant IDs in payments data not found in merchant data
### 5. Fees Structure (fees.json)
- **Size**: 518.7 KB
- **Record Count**: Specific count not available
- **Findings**:
- Contains fee information with identifiable keys
- Some acquirer IDs in fees data not found in countries file
### 6. Documentation
- **Manual**: Present (manual.md, 21.6 KB)
- **Readme**: Present (payments-readme.md, 1.7 KB)
### Key Observations:
1. **Data Relationships**:
- Potential linkage issues between datasets (merchant IDs, category codes, and acquirer IDs)
- Merchant category codes in payments data don't fully match category reference file
- Merchant IDs in payments data don't fully match merchant data records
- Acquirer IDs in fees data don't fully match countries file
2. **Data Structure**:
- Payments data appears to be the core transactional dataset
- Supporting files provide reference information (categories, countries, merchants, fees)
- JSON files contain structured data while CSVs contain tabular data
3. **Data Quality Notes**:
- Inconsistencies found across different datasets
- Potential data integration challenges due to ID mismatches
- Documentation available to assist with interpretation
The analysis reveals the payments dataset as the central component, with supporting files
providing contextual information. Notable data integrity issues were identified regarding ID
matching across datasets, which should be addressed before further analysis.|Below is the summary report based solely on the available information (i.e. file names, sizes, and
expected content types):
────────────────────────────
Report on Data Files in Payment Dataset
────────────────────────────
1. Overview of the Dataset Files:
• acquirer_countries.csv (≈0.2 KB): A small CSV that likely contains metadata or mappings for
acquiring country codes or names.
• fees.json (≈518.7 KB): A moderately sized JSON file that probably provides detailed fee
structures, fee types, or fee calculations applicable to the payment transactions.
• manual.md (≈21.6 KB): A markdown document serving as a manual. This file is expected to
include context, instructions, or detailed explanations regarding how to work with or interpret the
dataset.
• merchant_category_codes.csv (≈26.0 KB): A CSV containing codes that classify merchants. This
file may help link payment transactions (or fee calculations) to business categories.
• merchant_data.json (≈6.7 KB): A relatively small JSON file likely containing supplementary
information about merchants (such as names, IDs, or basic attributes).
• payments-readme.md (≈1.7 KB): A short README file that probably documents the structure,
source, and nuances of the payments dataset.
• payments.csv (≈23028.7 KB): By far the largest file in the set (over 23 MB). This appears to be
the core transactional dataset, probably containing detailed records of payments, such as
timestamps, merchant identifiers, amounts, transaction types, etc.
2. Notable Trends & Findings Based on File Characteristics:
• Main Data Concentration: The payments.csv file is significantly larger than all other files. This
indicates that while several supporting documents and lookup files exist, the primary volume of
data and most likely the majority of trends or analytics will come from analyzing this payment
transactions file.
• Structured Supporting Information: The presence of several lookup files (acquirer_countries.csv,
merchant_category_codes.csv, and merchant_data.json) suggests that the transactions in
payments.csv are cross-referenced against standardized metadata. This design is typical of well-
organized transactional databases, where linking transactions to merchant or fee information is
necessary.
• Rich Fee Data: The fees.json file, at over half a megabyte, indicates that detailed fee structures
(perhaps by transaction type, country, or merchant category) are maintained. Comparisons
between transaction records and fee specifications may reveal trends such as fee variations across
countries or merchant categories.
• Complementary Documentation: The two markdown files (manual.md and payments-
readme.md) indicate that the dataset is documented thoroughly. Such documentation is valuable
in understanding the relationships between files, expected formats, and proper analytical
approaches.
3. Potential Analytical Approaches (if full file contents were to be explored):
• Analyzing payments.csv to extract transaction patterns (volumes over time, frequency per
country/merchant, seasonal spikes, etc.).
• Linking fees from fees.json with transactions to determine profitability, fee patterns, or cost
structures.
• Utilizing merchant_category_codes.csv and merchant_data.json to build categorical analyses
(e.g., trends in industries, high-activity merchant groups).
• Validating or cross-referencing acquirer country data with transaction records to study
geographic distribution or country-specific behaviors.
• Consulting the manual.md and payments-readme.md documents to understand potential data
quality issues, processing instructions, or additional attributes not immediately visible from the file
names.
────────────────────────────
Conclusion:
Based on the provided file characteristics, the dataset is centered around a large volume of
payment transactions that are supported by detailed fee structures, merchant classifications, and
country mappings. The thorough documentation implies that the dataset is intended for in-depth
analytical studies, which might include transaction volume trends, fee impact analyses by country
or merchant segment, and overall payment behavior. Future analysis, when leveraging the actual
contents of these files, can validate these insights and uncover additional detailed findings.
────────────────────────────
This summary report relies only on file names, sizes, and inferred content types, as no direct
content analysis was performed.| + + + +_Figure 15._ A case of autonomous data science for fully open-ended data research. + +--- end of page.page_number=23 --- +