Article ID: | iaor19971737 |
Country: | United Kingdom |
Volume: | 23 |
Issue: | 10 |
Start Page Number: | 933 |
End Page Number: | 944 |
Publication Date: | Oct 1996 |
Journal: | Computers and Operations Research |
Authors: | Hardgrave Bill C., Glorfeld Louis W. |
Keywords: | neural networks, finance & banking |
Neural networks have proven to be a worthy alternative to traditional statistical techniques, such as regression and discriminant analysis, for prediction and classification problems. Unfortunately, neural network architectures are often chosen based upon conventional rules-of-thumb which limit the predictive power of the resulting model. As a means of overcoming the poor development of neural network models, this study describes and uses a systematic neural network development methodology. The methodology is presented via the study of a particular application of neural networks-determining the creditworthiness of commercial loan applications. The ability of humans to evaluate creditworthiness accurately is poor, and statistical techniques only help slightly. A neural network model is well suited for this type of problem. The results indicate that the proposed development methodology produced a neural network model that does a respectable job of determining creditworthiness in a very difficult problem situation.