METHOD AND SYSTEM FOR TRACKING CONSUMER CONFIDENCE BASED ON TRANSACTION DATA

• US 20160125441A1
• Filed: 11/03/2014
• Published: 05/05/2016
• Est. Priority Date: 11/03/2014
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Mastercard International Incorporated (MasterCard Incorporated)
• Original Assignee: Mastercard International Incorporated (MasterCard Incorporated)
• Inventors: Chauhan, Rohit
• Granted Patent: US 10,417,652 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0205 Location or geographical consideration

Abstract

A method of generating a more objective consumer confidence and more particularly to tracking consumer confidence objectively based on data regarding past transactions.

Claims

1. A computer-implemented method of tracking consumer confidence, the method comprising:

identifying a plurality of payment accounts corresponding to respective accountholders, wherein a geographic distribution of said accountholders is statistically representative of a geographic distribution of consumers in a geographic region;

at one or more computer processors, classifying a plurality of card transactions associated with the plurality of payment accounts over a time interval into a first set of transactions and a second set of transactions;

computing, for the first set of transactions and the second set of transactions, at least one card transaction-based feature; and

providing, to a display of a computer system, an indication of consumer confidence for consumers in the geographic region based on the at least one card transaction based feature and the first and second sets of transactions.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the first set of transactions comprises discretionary purchase transactions and the second set of transactions comprises non-discretionary purchase transactions.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein each card transaction in the plurality of card transactions is classified into the first or second set of transactions based on a flag associated with a merchant or a merchant category code corresponding to said card transaction, wherein said flag is stored in a computer database.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the first set of transactions comprises transactions corresponding to a first merchant category, and the second set of transactions comprises transactions corresponding to a second merchant category.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein the at least one card transaction based feature comprises a total number of transactions.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein the at least one card transaction based feature comprises a total transaction amount.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein the geographic region includes a plurality of subregions, each subregion includes a plurality of states of the United States, and an accountholder distribution for the respective subregions is approximately equal to a population distribution for the respective subregions.

8. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

evaluating a spending function for each accountholder, wherein the spending function is based on the at least one card transaction based feature and the transactions corresponding to said accountholder in at least one of the first and second sets of transactions; and

determining a proportion of the accountholders associated with values of the spending function that are trending in a direction selected from the group consisting of upward and downward.

9. The method of claim 8, further comprising:

comparing the determined proportion to a predetermined threshold, to generate a consumer confidence index for the geographic region.

10. A non-transitory computer readable medium having instructions embodied tangibly thereon, the instructions when executed causing a computer processor to perform the operations of:

identifying a plurality of payment accounts corresponding to respective accountholders, wherein a geographic distribution of said accountholders is statistically representative of a geographic distribution of consumers in a geographic region;

classifying a plurality of card transactions associated with the plurality of payment accounts over a time interval into a first set of transactions and a second set of transactions;

computing, for the first set of transactions and the second set of transactions, at least one card transaction based feature; and

providing, to a display of a computer system, an indication of consumer confidence for consumers in the geographic region based on the at least one card transaction based feature and the first and second sets of transactions.

11. The computer readable medium of claim 10, wherein the first set of transactions comprises discretionary purchase transactions and the second set of transactions comprises non-discretionary purchase transactions.

12. The computer readable medium of claim 10, wherein the first set of transactions comprises transactions corresponding to a first merchant category, and the second set of transactions comprises transactions corresponding to a second merchant category.

13. The computer readable medium of claim 10, wherein the at least one card transaction based feature comprises a total number of transactions.

14. The computer readable medium of claim 10, wherein the at least one card transaction based feature comprises a total transaction amount.

15. The computer readable medium of claim 10, wherein the geographic region includes a plurality of subregions, each subregion includes a plurality of states of the United States, and an accountholder distribution for the respective subregions is approximately equal to a population distribution for the respective subregions.

16. The computer readable medium of claim 10, the instructions when executed further causing the computer processor to perform the operations of:

evaluating a spending function for each accountholder, wherein the spending function is based on the at least one card transaction based feature and the transactions corresponding to said accountholder in at least one of the first and second sets of transactions; and

determining a proportion of the accountholders associated with values of the spending function that are trending in a direction selected from the group consisting of upward and downward.

17. The computer readable medium of claim 16, the instructions when executed further causing the computer processor to perform the operation of comparing the determined proportion to a predetermined threshold, to generate a consumer confidence index for the geographic region.

18. A computer-implemented method of tracking consumer confidence, the method comprising:

identifying a plurality of payment accounts corresponding to respective accountholders among a plurality of accountholders, wherein a geographic distribution of said accountholders is statistically representative of a geographic distribution of consumers in a geographic region;

at one or more computer processors, classifying a plurality of card transactions associated with the plurality of payment accounts over a time interval into a first set of discretionary purchase transactions and a second set of non-discretionary purchase transactions;

computing, for the first set of discretionary purchase transactions and the second set of non-discretionary purchase transactions, at least one card transaction based feature, wherein each card transaction based feature is one of a total number of transactions and a total transaction amount; and

providing, to a display of a computer system, an indication of consumer confidence for consumers in the geographic region based on the at least one card transaction based feature and the first and second sets of transactions, wherein the indication is provided for respective months in the time interval.

19. The method of claim 18, wherein each card transaction in the plurality of card transactions is classified into the first or second set of transactions based on a flag associated with a merchant or a merchant category code corresponding to said card transaction, wherein said flag is stored in a computer database.

20. The method of claim 19, further comprising:

evaluating a spending function for each accountholder, wherein the spending function is based on the at least one card transaction based feature and the transactions corresponding to said accountholder in at least one of the first and second sets of transactions;

determining a proportion of the accountholders associated with values of the spending function that are trending in a direction selected from the group consisting of upward and downward; and

comparing the determined proportion to a predetermined threshold, to generate a consumer confidence index for the geographic region.