The Development of Numerical Credit Evaluation Systems

Several discriminant and multiple regression analyses were performed on retail credit application data to develop a numerical scoring system for predicting credit risk in a finance company. Results showed that equal weights for all significantly predictive items were as effective as weights from the more sophisticated techniques of discriminant analysis and “stepwise multiple regression.” However, a variation of the basic discriminant analysis produced a better separation of groups at the lower score levels, where more potential losses could be eliminated with a minimum cost of potentially good accounts.