An Application of the Rough Set Approach to credit Rating

The credit rating represents an assessment of the relative level of risk associated with the timely payments required by the debt obligation. In this paper, we present a new approach to credit rating of customers based on the rough set theory. The concept of a rough set appeared to be an effective tool for the analysis of customer information systems representing knowledge gained by experience. The customer information system describes a set of customers by a set of multi-valued attributes, called condition attributes. The customers are classified into groups of risk subject to an expert's opinion, called decision attribute. A natural problem of knowledge analysis consists then in discovering relationships, in terms of decision rules, between description of customers by condition attributes and particular decisions. The rough set approach enables one to discover minimal subsets of condition attributes ensuring an acceptable quality of classification of the customers analyzed and to derive decision rules from the customer information system which can be used to support decisions about rating new customers. Using the rough set approach one analyses only facts hidden in data, it does not need any additional information about data and does not correct inconsistencies manifested in data; instead, rules produced are categorized into certain and possible. A real problem of the evaluation of the evaluation of credit rating by a department store is studied using the rough set approach.