Predicting Credit Risk in Peer-to-Peer Lending: A Neural Network Approach

Emergence of peer-to-peer lending has opened an appealing option for micro-financing and is growing rapidly as an option in the financial industry. However, peer-to-peer lending possesses a high risk of investment failure due to the lack of expertise on the borrowers´ creditworthiness. In addition, information asymmetry, the unsecured nature of loans as well as lack of rigid rules and regulations increase the credit risk in peer-to-peer lending. This paper proposes a credit scoring model using artificial neural networks in classifying peer-to-peer loan applications into default and non-default groups. The results indicate that the neural network-based credit scoring model performs effectively in screening default applications.