Advanced Default Risk Prediction in Small and Medum-Sized Enterprises Using Large Language Models

Predicting default risk in commercial bills for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) is crucial, as these enterprises represent one of the largest components of a nation’s economic structure, and their financial stability can impact systemic financial risk. However, data on the commercial bills...

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Main Authors: Haonan Huang, Jing Li, Chundan Zheng, Sikang Chen, Xuanyin Wang, Xingyan Chen
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: MDPI AG 2025-03-01
Series:Applied Sciences
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Online Access:https://www.mdpi.com/2076-3417/15/5/2733
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author Haonan Huang
Jing Li
Chundan Zheng
Sikang Chen
Xuanyin Wang
Xingyan Chen
author_facet Haonan Huang
Jing Li
Chundan Zheng
Sikang Chen
Xuanyin Wang
Xingyan Chen
author_sort Haonan Huang
collection DOAJ
description Predicting default risk in commercial bills for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) is crucial, as these enterprises represent one of the largest components of a nation’s economic structure, and their financial stability can impact systemic financial risk. However, data on the commercial bills of SMEs are scarce and challenging to gather, which has impeded research on risk prediction for these businesses. This study aims to address this gap by leveraging 38 multi-dimensional, non-financial features collected from 1972 real SMEs in China to predict bill default risk. We identified the most influential factors among these 38 features and introduced a novel prompt-based learning framework using large language models for risk assessment, benchmarking against seven mainstream machine learning algorithms. In the experiments, the XGBoost algorithm achieved the best performance on the Z-Score standardized dataset, with an accuracy of 81.42% and an F1 score of 80%. Additionally, we tested both the standard and fine-tuned versions of the large language model, which yielded accuracies of 75% and 82.1%, respectively. These results indicate that the proposed framework has significant potential for predicting risks in SMEs and offers new insights for related research.
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spelling doaj-art-e754f6f0524042a7b8c245f7707bb12e2025-08-20T02:05:23ZengMDPI AGApplied Sciences2076-34172025-03-01155273310.3390/app15052733Advanced Default Risk Prediction in Small and Medum-Sized Enterprises Using Large Language ModelsHaonan Huang0Jing Li1Chundan Zheng2Sikang Chen3Xuanyin Wang4Xingyan Chen5School of Computing and Artificial Intelligence, Southwestern University of Finance and Economics, Chengdu 610074, ChinaSchool of Computing and Artificial Intelligence, Southwestern University of Finance and Economics, Chengdu 610074, ChinaSchool of Computing and Artificial Intelligence, Southwestern University of Finance and Economics, Chengdu 610074, ChinaSchool of Computing and Artificial Intelligence, Southwestern University of Finance and Economics, Chengdu 610074, ChinaBusiness School, Beijing Normal University, Beijing 100875, ChinaSchool of Computing and Artificial Intelligence, Southwestern University of Finance and Economics, Chengdu 610074, ChinaPredicting default risk in commercial bills for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) is crucial, as these enterprises represent one of the largest components of a nation’s economic structure, and their financial stability can impact systemic financial risk. However, data on the commercial bills of SMEs are scarce and challenging to gather, which has impeded research on risk prediction for these businesses. This study aims to address this gap by leveraging 38 multi-dimensional, non-financial features collected from 1972 real SMEs in China to predict bill default risk. We identified the most influential factors among these 38 features and introduced a novel prompt-based learning framework using large language models for risk assessment, benchmarking against seven mainstream machine learning algorithms. In the experiments, the XGBoost algorithm achieved the best performance on the Z-Score standardized dataset, with an accuracy of 81.42% and an F1 score of 80%. Additionally, we tested both the standard and fine-tuned versions of the large language model, which yielded accuracies of 75% and 82.1%, respectively. These results indicate that the proposed framework has significant potential for predicting risks in SMEs and offers new insights for related research.https://www.mdpi.com/2076-3417/15/5/2733large language modelcommercial bill defaultfinancial credit risksSMEs
spellingShingle Haonan Huang
Jing Li
Chundan Zheng
Sikang Chen
Xuanyin Wang
Xingyan Chen
Advanced Default Risk Prediction in Small and Medum-Sized Enterprises Using Large Language Models
Applied Sciences
large language model
commercial bill default
financial credit risks
SMEs
title Advanced Default Risk Prediction in Small and Medum-Sized Enterprises Using Large Language Models
title_full Advanced Default Risk Prediction in Small and Medum-Sized Enterprises Using Large Language Models
title_fullStr Advanced Default Risk Prediction in Small and Medum-Sized Enterprises Using Large Language Models
title_full_unstemmed Advanced Default Risk Prediction in Small and Medum-Sized Enterprises Using Large Language Models
title_short Advanced Default Risk Prediction in Small and Medum-Sized Enterprises Using Large Language Models
title_sort advanced default risk prediction in small and medum sized enterprises using large language models
topic large language model
commercial bill default
financial credit risks
SMEs
url https://www.mdpi.com/2076-3417/15/5/2733
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AT jingli advanceddefaultriskpredictioninsmallandmedumsizedenterprisesusinglargelanguagemodels
AT chundanzheng advanceddefaultriskpredictioninsmallandmedumsizedenterprisesusinglargelanguagemodels
AT sikangchen advanceddefaultriskpredictioninsmallandmedumsizedenterprisesusinglargelanguagemodels
AT xuanyinwang advanceddefaultriskpredictioninsmallandmedumsizedenterprisesusinglargelanguagemodels
AT xingyanchen advanceddefaultriskpredictioninsmallandmedumsizedenterprisesusinglargelanguagemodels