Patent ID: 7848950

Claim:
A tangible, non-transitory computer-readable storage medium containing instructions that, when executed by a processor, causes the processor to perform operations comprising: receiving information corresponding to a plurality of merchants; determining a group of the plurality of merchants based on an industry code and a geographic location; receiving information corresponding to a number of financial transactions involving account holders during a period of time; determining, for each merchant of the plurality of merchants, the financial transactions involving account holders during the period of time; determining, a first value for each pair of, (a) a first merchant of the plurality of merchants, and (b) each remaining merchant, the first value corresponding to the number of account holders having at least one financial transaction with the first merchant and the remaining merchants during the period of time; determining a second value for each of the remaining merchants of the plurality of merchants other than the first merchant, the second value corresponding to the number of account holders having at least one financial transaction with each of the remaining merchants during the period of time; determining a third value corresponding to a ratio of the first value to the second value; determining a fourth value corresponding to the third value multiplied by a corrective factor to account for a significance of financial transactions, the fourth value comprising, C=A +( WI*B *( A−W 2)) wherein, C=the fourth value A=the first value B=the third value WI=a first weighting factor W2=a second weighting factor, wherein the corrective factor comprises, reducing the third value based on a reduced significance of transactions occurring between the first merchant and merchants having a number of financial transactions below a threshold number with both the first merchant and each of the remaining merchants during the period of time, increasing the third value based on an increased significance of transactions occurring between the first merchant and merchants having a number of financial transactions above the threshold number with both the first merchant and each of the remaining merchants during the period of time; and determining a ranking of each remaining merchant based on the fourth value.