Credit ratings of Chinese online loan platforms based on factor scores and K-means clustering algorithm  

作　　者：Rongda Chen Shengnan Wang Zhenghao Zhu Jingjing Yu Chao Dang 

机构地区：[1]School of Finance,Zhejiang University of Finance and Economics,Hangzhou,310018,China [2]Financial Innovation and Inclusive Finance Research Center,Zhejiang University of Finance and Economics,Hangzhou,310018,China [3]Zhejiang Double-Eight Strategy Research Institute,Hangzhou,310018,China

出　　处：《Journal of Management Science and Engineering》2023年第3期287-304,共18页管理科学学报（英文版）

基　　金：supported by grants from Major Program of National Social Science Foundation(No.22&ZDo73);the key program of the National Natural Science Foundation of China(NSFC No.71631005).

摘　　要：The rapid development of Chinese online loan platforms(OLPs),as well as their risks,has attracted widespread attention,increasing the demand for a complete credit rating mechanism.The present study establishes a credit rating indicator system for 130 mainstream Chinese OLPs that combines 12 quantitative metrics of online loan operations similar to commercial bank credit rating indicators,including platform transaction volume and average expected rate of return.We also consider two qualitative indicators of online loan background,namely platform background and guarantee mode,that reflect Chinese characteristics.Subsequently,a factor analysis was conducted to reduce the 14 indicators dimensions.The loads of the rating indicators in the resulting rotating component matrix were refined into an OLP operation scale factor,fund dispersion factor,security factor,and profitability factor.Finally,a K-means clustering algorithm was employed to cluster the factor scores of each OLP,thereby obtaining credit rating results.The empirical results indicate that the proposed machine learning-based credit rating method effectively provides early warnings of problem platforms,yielding more accurate credit ratings than those provided by two mainstream online loan rating websites in China,namely,Wangdaitianyan and Wangdaizhijia.

关 键 词：Internet finance Online loan platform Credit ratings Machine learning 

分 类 号：TP311.13[自动化与计算机技术—计算机软件与理论] F274[自动化与计算机技术—计算机科学与技术]