Using commercial share of wallet to rate investments

• US 7,792,732 B2
• Filed: 08/02/2006
• Issued: 09/07/2010
• Est. Priority Date: 10/29/2004
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: American Express Travel Related Services Company, Inc. (American Express Company)
• Original Assignee: American Express Travel Related Services Company, Inc. (American Express Company)
• Inventors: Turner, Geraldine A., Lyon, Charles Christopher, Haggerty, Kathleen, Yuan, Chao M., Biswas, Arnab, Ruterman, Jon Kevin, Phelan, Robert E., Okoh, Benedict O.
• Primary Examiner(s): CHEUNG, MARY DA ZHI WANG
• Application Number:
  US11/497,562
• Publication Number:
  US 20070067208A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,497 Days
• Field of Search: 705 35- 37, 705 39- 40, 707/609, 707705-706, 902/41
• US Class Current: 705/36.00R
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 40/00 Finance; Insurance; Tax strategies; Processing of corporate or income taxes
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 40/06 Asset management; Financial planning or analysis
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 40/08 Insurance

Abstract

Commercial size of spending wallet (“CSoSW”) is the total business spend of a business including cash but excluding bartered items. Commercial share of wallet (“CSoW”) is the portion of the spending wallet that is captured by a particular financial company. A modeling approach utilizes various data sources to provide outputs that describe a company'"'"'s spend capacity. A mutual fund rating company can use this CSoW/CSoSW modeling approach to predict the performance of funds that invest in a particular industry or sector. In addition, since mutual funds often provide guidelines for selecting stocks, rating companies can use this modeling approach to predict the performance of companies in a fund'"'"'s portfolio.

Claims

1. A method of rating an investment fund, comprising:

(a) identifying companies in which the fund has likely invested;

(b) modeling, by a computer-based system programmed to rate an investment fund, industry spending patterns using individual corporate data and aggregate corporate data, including financial statement data;

(c) for each identified company, estimating, by the computer-based system, a commercial size of spending wallet of the company based on, at least, known financial statement data of the company, total known business spending of the company, and the model of industry spending patterns, wherein the commercial size of spending wallet is the total business spending of the company that can be transacted using a payment instrument, wherein the payment instrument is associated with a transaction account, and wherein the model of industry spending patterns is used to infer financial statement data and spending data that is not known; and

(d) providing, by the computer-based system, a quality rating for the fund based on, at least, the commercial size of spending wallet of the identified companies.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the investment fund is an industry-specific fund and wherein the identifying step comprises:

identifying companies in which the fund has likely invested, wherein the companies are primarily associated with a single industry.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the investment fund invests in companies from multiple industries, further comprising:

repeating steps (a) through (d) for each industry; and

combining the quality ratings to produce a composite fund rating.

4. A computer-based system for rating an investment fund, comprising:

a processor; and

a memory in communication with the processor for storing a plurality of instructions for directing the processor to identify companies in which the fund has likely invested;

model industry spending patterns using individual corporate data and aggregate corporate data, including financial statement data;

for each identified company, estimate a commercial size of spending wallet of the company based on, at least, known financial statement data of the company, total known business spending of the company, and the model of industry spending patterns, wherein the commercial size of spending wallet is the total business spending of the company that can be transacted using a payment instrument, wherein the payment instrument is associated with a transaction account, and wherein the model of industry spending patterns is used to infer financial statement data and spending data that is not known; and

provide a quality rating for the fund based on, at least, the commercial size of spending wallet of the identified companies.

5. The system of claim 4, wherein the investment fund invests in companies from multiple industries, and wherein the plurality of instructions further direct the processor to

provide a quality rating for each industry, and

combine the ratings to produce a composite fund rating.