Using commercial share of wallet to rate investments

• US 7,844,534 B2
• Filed: 07/09/2010
• Issued: 11/30/2010
• 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:
  US12/833,741
• Publication Number:
  US 20100274739A1
• Time in Patent Office: 144 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 comprising:

modeling, by a computer-based system for rating an investment fund comprising a processor and a tangible and non-transitory memory, industry spending patterns using individual corporate data and aggregate corporate data, including financial statement data;

estimating, by the computer-based system, a commercial size of spending wallet of a company in which the investment fund has likely invested based on 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

generating, by the computer-based system, a quality rating for the investment fund based on the commercial size of spending wallet of the company.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the investment fund is an industry-specific fund.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the investment fund invests in companies from at least two industries.

4. The method of claim 1, further comprising generating a buy instruction based upon the commercial size of spending wallet of the company.

5. The method of claim 1, further comprising generating a sell instruction based upon the commercial size of spending wallet of the company.

6. The method of claim 1, further comprising generating a sell instruction based upon the commercial size of spending wallet of a customer of the company.

7. A computer-based system comprising:

a processor; and

a tangible, non-transitory memory in communication with the processor for storing a plurality of instructions for directing the processor to

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

estimate a commercial size of spending wallet of a company in which an investment fund has likely invested based on 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 investment fund based on the commercial size of spending wallet of the company.

8. The system of claim 7, wherein the investment fund invests in companies from multiple industries.

9. The system of claim 7, wherein the investment fund is an industry-specific fund.

10. The system of claim 7, further comprising generating a buy instruction based upon the commercial size of spending wallet of the company.

11. The system of claim 7, further comprising generating a sell instruction based upon the commercial size of spending wallet of the company.

12. The system of claim 7, further comprising generating a sell instruction based upon the commercial size of spending wallet of a customer of the company.

13. An article of manufacture including a computer readable medium having instructions stored thereon that, in response to execution by a computing device, cause the computing device to perform operations comprising:

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

estimating a commercial size of spending wallet of a company in which an investment fund has likely invested based on 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

providing a quality rating for the investment fund based on the commercial size of spending wallet of the company.

14. The article of claim 13, wherein the investment fund invests in companies from multiple industries.

15. The article of claim 13, wherein the investment fund is an industry-specific fund.

16. The article of claim 13, further comprising generating a buy instruction based upon the commercial size of spending wallet of the company.

17. The article of claim 13, further comprising generating a sell instruction based upon the commercial size of spending wallet of the company.

18. The article of claim 13, further comprising generating a sell instruction based upon the commercial size of spending wallet of a customer of the company.