Enhancing Credit Risk Management with Machine Learning: A Comparative Study of Predictive Models for Credit Default Prediction
Quoc Giang Nguyen , IEEE Professional Community, IEEE, USA Linh Hoang Nguyen , FPT Americas, USA Md Monir Hosen , MS in Business Analytics, St.Francis college, USA Mohammad Rasel , Masters in Business Analytics, International American University, LA, California, USA Jannatul Ferdous Shorna , College of Engineering and Computer Science, Florida Atlantic University, Boca Raton, Florida Md Sakib Mia , MSc in Business Analytics, Trine University, USA Sajidul Islam Khan , MSc in Business Analytics, Trine University, USAAbstract
This study investigates the application of machine learning algorithms for predictive analytics in credit risk management, aiming to enhance the accuracy of predicting credit defaults. The research compares multiple machine learning models, including logistic regression, decision trees, random forests, gradient boosting, XGBoost, and LightGBM, using a real-world credit risk dataset. The study focuses on evaluating the models' performance based on metrics such as accuracy, precision, recall, and F1-score. The results show that ensemble models, particularly XGBoost and LightGBM, outperform traditional algorithms in terms of predictive accuracy and computational efficiency, demonstrating their ability to effectively handle complex datasets. The comparative analysis highlights the strengths and weaknesses of each model, providing insights into the trade-offs between interpretability and predictive power. XGBoost and LightGBM are found to be highly effective for credit risk prediction, though challenges such as model interpretability and overfitting remain. The findings suggest that machine learning offers a promising approach for improving credit risk management, with implications for the financial industry to make more informed, data-driven lending decisions. The study underscores the importance of addressing interpretability concerns and data quality issues in real-world applications, paving the way for future advancements in machine learning for credit risk prediction.
Keywords
machine learning, credit risk management, predictive analytics
References
Altman, E. I. (1968). Financial ratios, discriminant analysis, and the prediction of corporate bankruptcy. The Journal of Finance, 23(4), 589-609. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1540-6261.1968.tb00843.x
Bengio, Y., Courville, A., & Vincent, P. (2013). Learning deep architectures for AI. Foundations and Trends in Machine Learning, 2(1), 1-127. https://doi.org/10.1561/2200000006
Breiman, L. (1986). Bagging predictors. Machine Learning, 24(2), 123-140. https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00116837
Breiman, L. (2001). Random forests. Machine Learning, 45(1), 5-32. https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1010933404324
Caruana, R., Gehrke, J., Koch, P., & Sturm, M. (2015). The importance of model interpretability in credit scoring. Proceedings of the 2015 IEEE International Conference on Data Mining, 567-576. https://doi.org/10.1109/ICDM.2015.61
Chen, T., & Guestrin, C. (2016). XGBoost: A scalable tree boosting system. Proceedings of the 22nd ACM SIGKDD International Conference on Knowledge Discovery and Data Mining, 785-794. https://doi.org/10.1145/2939672.2939785
Friedman, J. H. (2001). Greedy function approximation: A gradient boosting machine. Annals of Statistics, 29(5), 1189-1232. https://doi.org/10.1214/aos/1013203451
Gangan, A., Bhattacharyya, D., & Gupta, P. (2020). Credit scoring using XGBoost: A comparison of machine learning approaches. International Journal of Computer Applications, 175(13), 1-6. https://doi.org/10.5120/ijca2020919469
Ke, G., Meng, Q., & Finley, T. (2017). LightGBM: A highly efficient gradient boosting decision tree. Proceedings of the 31st International Conference on Neural Information Processing Systems, 3146-3154. https://doi.org/10.5555/3295222.3295268
Liao, S. H., & Lu, C. C. (2018). Predicting credit scoring using LightGBM: An empirical study. Sustainable Computing: Informatics and Systems, 19, 1-7. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.suscom.2017.11.003
Ohlson, J. A. (1980). Financial ratios and the probabilistic prediction of bankruptcy. Journal of Accounting Research, 18(1), 109-131. https://doi.org/10.2307/2490395
Zhao, Z. (2018). An analysis of credit risk prediction using machine learning. Journal of Computer Science and Technology, 33(5), 987-1003. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11390-018-1825-2
Md Jamil Ahmmed, Md Mohibur Rahman, Ashim Chandra Das, Pritom Das, Tamanna Pervin, Sadia Afrin, Sanjida Akter Tisha, Md Mehedi Hassan, & Nabila Rahman. (2024). COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF MACHINE LEARNING ALGORITHMS FOR BANKING FRAUD DETECTION: A STUDY ON PERFORMANCE, PRECISION, AND REAL-TIME APPLICATION. International Journal of Computer Science & Information System, 9(11), 31–44. https://doi.org/10.55640/ijcsis/Volume09Issue11-04
Das, A. C., Mozumder, M. S. A., Hasan, M. A., Bhuiyan, M., Islam, M. R., Hossain, M. N., ... & Alam, M. I. (2024). MACHINE LEARNING APPROACHES FOR DEMAND FORECASTING: THE IMPACT OF CUSTOMER SATISFACTION ON PREDICTION ACCURACY. The American Journal of Engineering and Technology, 6(10), 42-53.
Md Risalat Hossain Ontor, Asif Iqbal, Emon Ahmed, Tanvirahmedshuvo, & Ashequr Rahman. (2024). LEVERAGING DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION AND SOCIAL MEDIA ANALYTICS FOR OPTIMIZING US FASHION BRANDS’ PERFORMANCE: A MACHINE LEARNING APPROACH. International Journal of Computer Science & Information System, 9(11), 45–56. https://doi.org/10.55640/ijcsis/Volume09Issue11-05
Rahman, A., Iqbal, A., Ahmed, E., & Ontor, M. R. H. (2024). PRIVACY-PRESERVING MACHINE LEARNING: TECHNIQUES, CHALLENGES, AND FUTURE DIRECTIONS IN SAFEGUARDING PERSONAL DATA MANAGEMENT. International journal of business and management sciences, 4(12), 18-32.
Shak, M. S., Uddin, A., Rahman, M. H., Anjum, N., Al Bony, M. N. V., Alam, M., ... & Pervin, T. (2024). INNOVATIVE MACHINE LEARNING APPROACHES TO FOSTER FINANCIAL INCLUSION IN MICROFINANCE. International Interdisciplinary Business Economics Advancement Journal, 5(11), 6-20.
Naznin, R., Sarkar, M. A. I., Asaduzzaman, M., Akter, S., Mou, S. N., Miah, M. R., ... & Sajal, A. (2024). ENHANCING SMALL BUSINESS MANAGEMENT THROUGH MACHINE LEARNING: A COMPARATIVE STUDY OF PREDICTIVE MODELS FOR CUSTOMER RETENTION, FINANCIAL FORECASTING, AND INVENTORY OPTIMIZATION. International Interdisciplinary Business Economics Advancement Journal, 5(11), 21-32.
Bhattacharjee, B., Mou, S. N., Hossain, M. S., Rahman, M. K., Hassan, M. M., Rahman, N., ... & Haque, M. S. U. (2024). MACHINE LEARNING FOR COST ESTIMATION AND FORECASTING IN BANKING: A COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF ALGORITHMS. Frontline Marketing, Management and Economics Journal, 4(12), 66-83.
Rahman, A., Iqbal, A., Ahmed, E., & Ontor, M. R. H. (2024). PRIVACY-PRESERVING MACHINE LEARNING: TECHNIQUES, CHALLENGES, AND FUTURE DIRECTIONS IN SAFEGUARDING PERSONAL DATA MANAGEMENT. Frontline Marketing, Management and Economics Journal, 4(12), 84-106.
Al Mamun, A., Hossain, M. S., Rishad, S. S. I., Rahman, M. M., Shakil, F., Choudhury, M. Z. M. E., ... & Sultana, S. (2024). MACHINE LEARNING FOR STOCK MARKET SECURITY MEASUREMENT: A COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF SUPERVISED, UNSUPERVISED, AND DEEP LEARNING MODELS. The American Journal of Engineering and Technology, 6(11), 63-76.
Das, A. C., Rishad, S. S. I., Akter, P., Tisha, S. A., Afrin, S., Shakil, F., ... & Rahman, M. M. (2024). ENHANCING BLOCKCHAIN SECURITY WITH MACHINE LEARNING: A COMPREHENSIVE STUDY OF ALGORITHMS AND APPLICATIONS. The American Journal of Engineering and Technology, 6(12), 150-162.
Miah, J., Khan, R. H., Ahmed, S., & Mahmud, M. I. (2023, June). A comparative study of detecting covid 19 by using chest X-ray images–A deep learning approach. In 2023 IEEE World AI IoT Congress (AIIoT) (pp. 0311-0316). IEEE.
Miah, J. (2024). HOW FAMILY DNA CAN CAUSE LUNG CANCER USING MACHINE LEARNING. International Journal of Medical Science and Public Health Research, 5(12), 8-14.
Rahman, M. M., Akhi, S. S., Hossain, S., Ayub, M. I., Siddique, M. T., Nath, A., ... & Hassan, M. M. (2024). EVALUATING MACHINE LEARNING MODELS FOR OPTIMAL CUSTOMER SEGMENTATION IN BANKING: A COMPARATIVE STUDY. The American Journal of Engineering and Technology, 6(12), 68-83.
Das, P., Pervin, T., Bhattacharjee, B., Karim, M. R., Sultana, N., Khan, M. S., ... & Kamruzzaman, F. N. U. (2024). OPTIMIZING REAL-TIME DYNAMIC PRICING STRATEGIES IN RETAIL AND E-COMMERCE USING MACHINE LEARNING MODELS. The American Journal of Engineering and Technology, 6(12), 163-177.
Hossain, M. N., Hossain, S., Nath, A., Nath, P. C., Ayub, M. I., Hassan, M. M., ... & Rasel, M. (2024). ENHANCED BANKING FRAUD DETECTION: A COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF SUPERVISED MACHINE LEARNING ALGORITHMS. American Research Index Library, 23-35.
Ahmmed, M. J., Rahman, M. M., Das, A. C., Das, P., Pervin, T., Afrin, S., ... & Rahman, N. (2024). COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF MACHINE LEARNING ALGORITHMS FOR BANKING FRAUD DETECTION: A STUDY ON PERFORMANCE, PRECISION, AND REAL-TIME APPLICATION. American Research Index Library, 31-44.
Al Bony, M. N. V., Das, P., Pervin, T., Shak, M. S., Akter, S., Anjum, N., ... & Rahman, M. K. (2024). COMPARATIVE PERFORMANCE ANALYSIS OF MACHINE LEARNING ALGORITHMS FOR BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE: A STUDY ON CLASSIFICATION AND REGRESSION MODELS. Frontline Marketing, Management and Economics Journal, 4(11), 72-92.
Das, A. C., Rishad, S. S. I., Akter, P., Tisha, S. A., Afrin, S., Shakil, F., ... & Rahman, M. M. (2024). ENHANCING BLOCKCHAIN SECURITY WITH MACHINE LEARNING: A COMPREHENSIVE STUDY OF ALGORITHMS AND APPLICATIONS. The American Journal of Engineering and Technology, 6(12), 150-162.
Ahmed, M. P., Das, A. C., Akter, P., Mou, S. N., Tisha, S. A., Shakil, F., ... & Ahmed, A. (2024). HARNESSING MACHINE LEARNING MODELS FOR ACCURATE CUSTOMER LIFETIME VALUE PREDICTION: A COMPARATIVE STUDY IN MODERN BUSINESS ANALYTICS. American Research Index Library, 06-22.
Akter, P., Hossain, S., Siddique, M. T., Ayub, M. I., Nath, A., Nath, P. C., ... & Hassan, M. M. (2025). Sentiment Analysis of Consumer Feedback and Its Impact on Business Strategies by Machine Learning. The American Journal of Applied sciences, 7(01), 6-16.
Hossain, M. S., Khan, A., Das, P., Haque, M. S. U., Kamruzzaman, F., Akter, S., ... & Miah, M. R. (2025). Enhanced market trend forecasting using machine learning models: a study with external factor integration. International Interdisciplinary Business Economics Advancement Journal, 6(01), 5-12.
Article Statistics
Downloads
Copyright License
Copyright (c) 2025 Quoc Giang Nguyen, Linh Hoang Nguyen, Md Monir Hosen, Mohammad Rasel, Jannatul Ferdous Shorna, Md Sakib Mia, Sajidul Islam Khan

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Authors retain the copyright of their manuscripts, and all Open Access articles are disseminated under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License 4.0 (CC-BY), which licenses unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided that the original work is appropriately cited. The use of general descriptive names, trade names, trademarks, and so forth in this publication, even if not specifically identified, does not imply that these names are not protected by the relevant laws and regulations.