Patent ID: 7788152

Claim:
An apparatus for estimating a purchasing ability of a consumer, comprising: a processor; and a memory in communication with the processor, the memory for storing a plurality of processing instructions for directing the processor to: receive individual and aggregated consumer data including tradeline data, internal customer data and consumer panel data for a plurality of different consumers; determine at least two categories of consumers based on the individual and aggregated consumer data, the first category including consumers that primarily pay down credit account balances and the second category including consumers that primarily revolve credit account balances; model consumer spending patterns for each of the first and second categories based on the individual and aggregated consumer data; receive tradeline data for a plurality of accounts of an individual consumer for a previous period of time; identify any balance transfers into at least one of the plurality of accounts, based on the tradeline data; discount any spending identified for any of the plurality of accounts for any portion of the previous period of time in which a balance transfer is identified; assign one of the first and second categories to the individual based on the tradeline and consumer panel data, after said discounting; estimate a purchasing ability of the individual consumer based on the assigned category, and the consumer spending pattern modeled for the assigned category; and change the terms of a credit account of the individual based on said estimating.