Patent ID: 8078529

Claim:
A system comprising: a database for storing transaction data taken from a plurality of revolving-credit accounts, wherein, for each revolving credit-account, the transaction data comprises: a credit-limit amount; a spend amount for each month; and a balance amount for each month; a processor associated with the database and configured to execute a credit-usage application for evaluating a customer's ability to manage revolving credit; wherein the credit-usage application executed by the processor is configured to: review the transaction data of each revolving credit-account to determine whether a trigger spend occurred; for each of the revolving credit-accounts in which a trigger spend occurred, review the spend amount for each month subsequent to the trigger spend; for each of the revolving credit-accounts in which a trigger spend occurred, review the balance amount for each month subsequent to the trigger spend; identify those revolving credit-accounts in which the balance amount increases and the spend amount decreases in the months subsequent to the trigger spend; and determine that a revolving-credit account's balance amount increased in the months subsequent to the trigger spend, if the balance amount seven months after the trigger spend is greater than the balance amount one month after the trigger spend.