Patent ID: 8190478

Claim:
A method comprising: determining, by a computer-based ranking system, a first value for each pair of, a first merchant of a plurality of merchants, and each remaining merchant, wherein the first value corresponds to a number of account holders having at least one financial transaction with the first merchant and the remaining merchants during a period of time; determining, by the computer-based system, 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, by the computer-based system, a third value corresponding to a ratio of the first value to the second value; determining, by the computer-based system, a fourth value, wherein the fourth value comprises C=A+(WI*B*(A−W2)); wherein, C=the fourth value A=the first value B=the third value WI=a first weighting factor W2=a second weighting factor; and ranking, by the computer-based system, each remaining merchant based on the fourth value.