Automated analysis of data to generate prospect notifications based on trigger events

• US 8,732,004 B1
• Filed: 09/20/2005
• Issued: 05/20/2014
• Est. Priority Date: 09/22/2004
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Experian Information Solutions Incorporated (Experian plc)
• Original Assignee: Experian Information Solutions Incorporated (Experian plc)
• Inventors: Ramos, Armando, Meeks, Stephen R., Bodda, Michele M., Fielding, Pamela
• Primary Examiner(s): Lastra, Daniel
• Application Number:
  US11/231,339
• Time in Patent Office: 3,164 Days
• Field of Search: 705/14, 705/14.1
• US Class Current: 705/14.1
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0251 Targeted advertisements
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0255 based on user history
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0269 based on user profile or attribute
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 40/03 Credit; Loans; Processing thereof
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 90/00 Systems or methods specially adapted for administrative, commercial, financial, managerial or supervisory purposes, not involving significant data processing

Abstract

Systems and methods are described for identifying a subset of interest from a general population and for monitoring a database of daily activity logs associated with the general population in order to identify database entries indicative of an occurrence of a pre-defined trigger event that is associated with a member of the subset of interest. In particular, systems and methods are described that allow a massive database of daily activity logs to be monitored to identify trigger events that have occurred within the past twenty-four hours or other very recent time period. Embodiments are described that may be advantageously used by a provider of credit-related products and/or services who wishes to accurately target prospective customers, identified by the system, based on occurrence of a trigger event, as being in a decision-making phase of credit shopping, for purposes of making a timely and targeted offering relevant to the customers'"'"' current activities.

Claims

1. A computer-implemented system for providing, to a client, notifications about consumers, the notifications indicating that the consumers are currently good prospects for accepting a firm offer of credit from the client, the system comprising:

a data warehouse configured to store electronic representations of credit-related and demographic information about a general population of consumers, said general population of consumers comprising individual consumers;

a subset data repository for storing an electronic representation of a subset of the general population of consumers of the data warehouse;

a client interface system comprising one or more data input devices, said client interface system being configured to accept client-selected pre-screen attributes criteria, which comprise client-selected attributes of consumers from the general population, the client-selected attributes being indicative to the client of consumers whom the client considers to be worthy of a firm offer of credit from the client, said client interface system being further configured to accept an indication of at least one client-selected trigger event, wherein a trigger event is a type of financial event that is associated with a consumer and with a financial entity other than the client, said type of financial event being selected by the client as being indicative of an individual consumer'"'"'s current interest in receiving a firm offer of credit;

a computer-implemented pre-screen rules engine configured to receive the client-selected pre-screen attributes criteria, said pre-screen rules engine being further configured to programmatically access and analyze the credit-related and demographic information in the data warehouse and to identify, based at least in part on the client-selected pre-screen attributes criteria, a subset of the individual consumers from the general population of consumers in the data warehouse, each of whom the client considers to be worthy of a firm offer of credit, the rules engine being further configured to store the identified subset of individual consumers in the subset data repository;

an online credit activity database configured to store data about financial events associated with the general population of consumers, said online credit activity database being further configured to receive a plurality of updates from a variety of entities other than the client, such entities comprising at least one of;

merchants, lenders, financial institutions, and government entities, each of said updates providing information regarding at least one financial event, each financial event being associated with an individual consumer from the general population of consumers and with at least one entity other than the client, wherein at least one of the financial events is associated with an individual consumer who is a member of the subset of individual consumers stored in the subset data repository, and wherein at least one of the financial events is of the at least one type selected by the client as being the at least one trigger event, wherein said online credit activity database is configured to store an indication of when each update was received; and

a trigger notification system configured to;

receive an indication of the subset of individual consumers stored in the subset data repository;

receive an indication of the at least one client-selected trigger event accepted by the client interface system;

receive, from the online credit activity database, on a daily or more frequent basis, information regarding recent updates about financial events received by the online credit activity database;

filter the information about the recent updates to identify financial events related to consumers who are included in the subset of individual consumers stored in the subset data repository;

filter the information about the recent updates to identify financial events which are of the at least one type selected by the client as being a trigger event; and

on a daily or more frequent basis, provide an indication for the client of the consumers belonging to the subset of individual consumers identified by the pre-screen rules engine and stored in the subset data repository who are also associated with a recent financial event of the at least one type selected by the client as being a trigger event.

2. The computer-implemented system of claim 1, wherein the indication for the client of the individual consumers provided by the trigger notification system comprises contact information for the indicated consumers.

3. The computer-implemented system of claim 1, wherein the client interface system is further configured to accept updates to at least one of the client-selected pre-screen attributes criteria and the client-selected at least one trigger event.

4. The computer-implemented system of claim 1, wherein the at least one client-selected trigger event comprises at least one of:

automobile loan credit score inquiries, mortgage loan credit score inquiries, home equity loan credit score inquiries, credit card credit score inquiries, newly established automobile loans, newly established mortgage loans, newly established home equity loans, and newly established credit card accounts.

5. The computer-implemented system of claim 1, wherein the client interface system is further configured to receive from the client data that is indicative of a success rate for firm offers of credit made to consumers whose names were included in the indication provided by the trigger notification system, said client interface system being further configured to correlate said success rate with said set of client-selected pre-screen attributes criteria, and to generate one or more reports of different success rates associated with different sets of client-selected pre-screen attributes criteria.

6. The computer-implemented system of claim 1, wherein at least a portion of the subset of the general population of consumers stored in the subset data repository is provided by the client.

7. The computer-implemented system of claim 1, wherein the subset of individual consumers excludes consumers who are current customers of the client.

8. The computer-implemented system of claim 1, wherein the subset of individual consumers excludes consumers with whom the client has a current business relationship.

9. A computer-implemented method of providing to a client notifications about consumer financial events between consumers and financial entities other than the client, the method comprising:

receiving, via a client interface system comprising one or more data input devices, a set of client-selected pre-screen attributes criteria comprising attributes that are indicative to the client of consumers whom the client considers to be worthy of a firm offer of credit from the client;

filtering, based at least in part on the client-selected pre-screen attributes criteria, data in a data warehouse configured to store electronic representations of credit-related and demographic information about a general population of consumers, said general population of consumers comprising individual consumers, to identify a subset of the individual consumers from the general population of consumers in the data warehouse, each of whom the client consider s to be worthy of a firm offer of credit;

populating a subset data repository with an electronic indication of the identified subset of individual consumers;

receiving, from a first financial institution, data identifying one or more types of client-selected trigger events, which are financial events, occurring between at least one consumer and at least one financial entity other than the client that are deemed by the client to be indicative of a consumer'"'"'s current interest in obtaining an offer of credit or of a change in the consumer'"'"'s credit-worthiness;

electronically monitoring, on a periodic basis, in an online credit activity database that is configured to store data about financial events, each financial event being associated with at least one individual consumer from the general population of consumers and with at least one financial entity, data about recent updates received by the online credit activity database from a variety of entities other than the client, such entities comprising at least one of;

merchants, lenders, financial institutions, and government entities, to analyze the credit-related activity of the individual consumers who are included in the identified subset of individual consumers from the subset data repository, and to identify an indication of one or more financial events occurring since a previous monitoring of the online credit activity database, the one or more financial events occurring between at least one consumer who is included in the identified subset of individual consumers and at least one financial entity other than the client, the one or more financial events further being of the one or more types of client-selected trigger events that are deemed by the client to be indicative of a consumer'"'"'s current interest in obtaining an offer of credit; and

providing an electronic notification to the client indicative of the at least one consumer associated with the identified one or more trigger events occurring since a previous monitoring of the database between the at least one consumer and the at least one financial entity other than the client;

said method performed by a computerized prospect trigger system that comprises one or more computers.

10. The computer-implemented method of claim 9, the electronic notification further including information about the one or more types of trigger events that have been identified.

11. The computer-implemented method of claim 9, the electronic notification comprising information about trigger events occurring within a previous one-day time period.

12. The computer-implemented method of claim 9, the periodic basis being daily.

13. The computer-implemented method of claim 9, said electronic monitoring in the online credit activity comprising monitoring in the online credit activity database, which is updated at least daily.

14. The computer-implemented method of claim 9, wherein populating the subset data repository with the electronic indication of the identified subset of individual consumers further comprises deleting from the identified subset of individual consumers at least one of the following types of consumers:

consumers who have requested not to receive offers of credit, consumers that appear on an opt-out/pander list, consumers who have been previously included in a notification within a pre-determined recent time period, and consumers who appear in the notification more than a pre-determined number of times.

15. The computer-implemented method of claim 9, wherein the subset of individual consumers excludes consumers who are current customers of the client.

16. The computer-implemented method of claim 9, wherein the subset of individual consumers excludes consumers with whom the client has a current business relationship.