Patent ID: 7991666

Claim:
A method for modeling consumer behavior to estimate consumer spend, comprising: analyzing, by a computer-based system for estimating the consumer spend comprising a processor and non-transitory memory, individual consumer data and aggregated consumer data to determine spending behavior for at least one category of consumers, wherein the individual consumer data and the aggregated consumer data include consumer panel data, tradeline data and internal customer data; deriving a model of consumer spending patterns for the at least one category based on the analyzing; validating the model using consumer panel data; receiving tradeline data for a plurality of accounts of an individual consumer over a previous period of time; identifying any balance transfers into at least one of the plurality of accounts, based on the tradeline data; discounting any spending identified for any of the plurality of accounts for any portion of the previous period of time in which a balance transfer to such account is identified; estimating, by the computer-based system, a purchasing ability of the individual consumer based on the tradeline data, the discounting and the model; and outputting, by the computer-based system, the purchasing ability.