Machine Learning for Corporate Bankruptcy Prediction

Corporate bankruptcy prediction has long been an important and widely studied topic, which is of a great concern to investors or creditors, borrowing firms or governments. Especially due to the recent change in the world economy and as more firms, large and small, seem to fail now more than ever. The prediction of the bankruptcy, is then of increasing importance. There has been considerable interest in using financial ratios for predicting financial distress in companies since the seminal works of Beaver using an univariate analysis and Altman approach with multiple discriminant analysis. The big amount of financial ratios makes bankruptcy prediction a difficult high-dimensional classification problem. So this dissertation presents a way for ratio selection which determines the parsimony and economy of the models and thus the accuracy of prediction. With the selected financial ratios, this dissertation explores several Machine Learning methods, aiming at bankruptcy prediction, which is addressed as a binary classification problem (bankrupt or non-bankrupt companies). They are OP-KNN (Publication I), Delta test-ELM (DT- ELM) (Publication VII) and Leave-One-Out-Incremental Extreme Learning Machine (LOO-IELM) (Publication VI). Furthermore, soft classification techniques (classifier ensembles and the usage of financial expertise) are used in this dissertation. For example, Ensemble K-nearest neighbors (EKNN) in Publication V, Ensembles of Local Linear Models in Publication IV, and Combo and Ensemble model in Publication VI. The results reveal the great potential of soft classification techniques, which appear to be the direction for future research as core techniques that are used in the development of prediction models. In addition to selecting ratios and models, the other foremost issue in experiments is the selection of datasets. Different studies have used different datasets, some of which are publicly downloadable, some are collected from confidential resources. In this dissertation, thanks to Prof. Philippe Du Jardin, we use a real dataset built for French retails companies. Moreover, a practical problem, missing data, is also considered and solved in this dissertation, like the methods shown in Publication II and Publication VIII

Financial Soundness Prediction Using a Multi-classification Model: Evidence from Current Financial Crisis in OECD Banks

The paper aims to develop an early warning model that separates previously rated banks (337 Fitch-rated banks from OECD) into three classes, based on their financial health and using a one-year window. The early warning system is based on a classification model which estimates the Fitch ratings using Bankscope bankspecific data, regulatory and macroeconomic data as input variables. The authors propose a “hybridization technique” that combines the Extreme learning machine and the Synthetic Minority Over-sampling Technique. Due to the imbalanced nature of the problem, the authors apply an oversampling technique on the data aiming to improve the classification results on the minority groups. The methodology proposed outperforms other existing classification techniques used to predict bank solvency. It proved essential in improving average accuracy and especially the performance of the minority groups

Machine learning applied to banking supervision a literature review

Guerra, P., & Castelli, M. (2021). Machine learning applied to banking supervision a literature review. Risks, 9(7), 1-24. [136]. https://doi.org/10.3390/risks9070136Machine learning (ML) has revolutionised data analysis over the past decade. Like in-numerous other industries heavily reliant on accurate information, banking supervision stands to benefit greatly from this technological advance. The objective of this review is to provide a compre-hensive walk-through of how the most common ML techniques have been applied to risk assessment in banking, focusing on a supervisory perspective. We searched Google Scholar, Springer Link, and ScienceDirect databases for articles including the search terms “machine learning” and (“bank” or “banking” or “supervision”). No language, date, or Journal filter was applied. Papers were then screened and selected according to their relevance. The final article base consisted of 41 papers and 2 book chapters, 53% of which were published in the top quartile journals in their field. Results are presented in a timeline according to the publication date and categorised by time slots. Credit risk assessment and stress testing are highlighted topics as well as other risk perspectives, with some references to ML application surveys. The most relevant ML techniques encompass k-nearest neigh-bours (KNN), support vector machines (SVM), tree-based models, ensembles, boosting techniques, and artificial neural networks (ANN). Recent trends include developing early warning systems (EWS) for bankruptcy and refining stress testing. One limitation of this study is the paucity of contributions using supervisory data, which justifies the need for additional investigation in this field. However, there is increasing evidence that ML techniques can enhance data analysis and decision making in the banking industry.publishersversionpublishe

Forecasting Financial Distress With Machine Learning – A Review

Purpose – Evaluate the various academic researches with multiple views on credit risk and artificial intelligence (AI) and their evolution.Theoretical framework – The study is divided as follows: Section 1 introduces the article. Section 2 deals with credit risk and its relationship with computational models and techniques. Section 3 presents the methodology. Section 4 addresses a discussion of the results and challenges on the topic. Finally, section 5 presents the conclusions.Design/methodology/approach – A systematic review of the literature was carried out without defining the time period and using the Web of Science and Scopus database.Findings – The application of computational technology in the scope of credit risk analysis has drawn attention in a unique way. It was found that the demand for identification and introduction of new variables, classifiers and more assertive methods is constant. The effort to improve the interpretation of data and models is intense.Research, Practical & Social implications – It contributes to the verification of the theory, providing information in relation to the most used methods and techniques, it brings a wide analysis to deepen the knowledge of the factors and variables on the theme. It categorizes the lines of research and provides a summary of the literature, which serves as a reference, in addition to suggesting future research.Originality/value – Research in the area of Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning is recent and requires attention and investigation, thus, this study contributes to the opening of new views in order to deepen the work on this topic