Predicting Prepayment and Default Risks of Unsecured Consumer Loans in Online Lending

Zhiyong Li, Ke Li, Xiao Yao and Qing Wen

Emerging Markets Finance and Trade, 2019, vol. 55, issue 1, 118-132

Abstract: Online lending provides a means of fast financing for borrowers based on their creditworthiness. However, borrowers may undermine this agreement due to early repayment or default, which are two major concerns for the platform and lenders, since both affect the profitability of a loan. While default risk is frequently focused on credit scoring literature, prepayment has received much less attention, despite a higher prepayment rate being observed in online lending when compared with default. This article uses multivariate logistic regression to predict the probability of both the underlying prepayment and default risks. Real consumer lending data of 140,605 unsecured loans provides evidence that these two events have their own distinct patterns. We consider systemic risk by incorporating macroeconomic factors in modeling and address the influence of economic conditions, which are lessons learnt from the last financial crisis. The out-of-sample validation has shown that both prepayment and default can be accurately predicted. This article highlights the necessity of regulations on prepayment given the fast growing online lending market.

Date: 2019
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (7)

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/1540496X.2018.1479251 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:mes:emfitr:v:55:y:2019:i:1:p:118-132

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.tandfonline.com/pricing/journal/MREE20

DOI: 10.1080/1540496X.2018.1479251

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Emerging Markets Finance and Trade from Taylor & Francis Journals
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Longhurst ().