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

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.