Rui Ying Goh has successfully defended her thesis titled ‘Unleashing the potential of Open Banking: three use cases for risk assessment’ (subject to minor corrections). We are proud of this milestone since it is the first project from our PhDs in Financial Technology.

Our sincere thanks to Galina Andreeva (first supervisor), Yi Cao and Jonathan Crook (current and former supervisors), Tony Bellotti (external examiner, Nottingham University, China), Antonia Gieschen and Belen Martin-Barragan (internal examiner and chair at the viva), and all colleagues supporting Rui and PhD in FinTech programme.

We would like to extend our gratitude to Atto (former DirectID), our industry partner, for support with data, guidance, advice, and financial assistance and to EIT Digital for financial support.

Savina Kim has passed her PhD defence for the thesis titled ‘The Double-Edged Sword of AI & Big Data: A Socio-Technical Examination of Algorithmic Fairness in Lending’ (subject to minor corrections).

This is an important achievement, since it is one of the first projects from Centre for Technomoral Futures funded by Baillie Gifford. We are positive that the near future we will see more successful defences from this collaboration.

We give our sincere thanks to Galina Andreeva and Michael Rovatsos (first and second supervisors), Yvonne Seow Hsin Vonn (external examiner from Nottingham University), Augusto Voltes-Dorta and Xin Fei (internal examiner and chair at the viva), and everyone who backed Savina during her pursuit of a PhD.

Yujia Chen got through her PhD viva successfully with the thesis, “Unveiling the Decision-Making in the Lending Industry Through Explainable AI” (subject to minor corrections).

We are extremely grateful to Belen Martin-Barragan and Raffaella Calabrese (first and second supervisors), Stefan Lessmann (external examiner, Humboldt-University of Berlin, Germany), Galina Andreeva and Antonia Gieschen (internal examiner and chair at the viva), and all the staff and peers who aided Yujia in her academic journey.

We are happy to announce that Yujia is currently continuing in the position of Postdoctoral Research Fellow in Open Finance (supervised by Raffaella Calabrese) in the MSBE group at the University of Edinburgh Business School.

Please join us in congratulating Rui, Savina and Yujia!

Nadine Salkeld's extensive experience across diverse roles in the financial sector, coupled with her academic qualifications, exemplifies her dedication and expertise. Her tenure in volunteer and pro bono roles reflects a deep-seated commitment to societal welfare.

Nadine's mandate involves consolidating the CRC's historical significance and propelling its initiatives to achieve new milestones in research and influence.

Nadine's multifaceted career journey positions her as an invaluable asset, bringing a wealth of expertise and leadership to drive the Credit Research Centre's success in the evolving landscape of finance and research.

We look forward to having Nadine as our new manager at the CRC.

Call for Papers

Annals of Operations Research seeks submissions for a special volume on Credit Risk Modelling Innovations in a Changing World. The deadline for submission is 31 January 2024. This special issue is targeted towards, but not restricted to the 18th Credit Scoring & Credit Control conference 2023. Papers not presented at the conference may also be submitted. Contributions arising from papers given at the conference should be substantially extended, and should cite the conference paper where appropriate. Credit risk modelling/credit scoring, the main topic of the conference, is one of the most successful applications of Operational Research. Its main traditional objective is to assist in deciding if a borrower should be given a loan or not. This is achieved by employing mathematical, statistical, and machine-learning models that estimate the probability of default using some historic data. Since its inception in the 1940s–1950s, credit scoring has been adopted by almost all lenders.

Recent years have seen an explosion of new methods and technologies in the area of credit risk: Artificial intelligence, Cloud Computing, Big (and alternative) Data—to name just a few. Alongside the technological development, credit risk modellers face an increasing number of new challenges brought by political turmoil, economic pressures, and changing society. Such challenges include, for example, energy and cost of living crises, climate change, ensuring that principles of fairness and ethics are observed.

The aim of this special issue is to explore theoretical and practical solutions based in the latest technology to the problems that the credit risk analytics community faces. It invites papers that make significant research contributions to the topics listed below (the list is not restrictive).

The main topics of interest are:

• Climate risk for credit
• Open banking and transactional data
• Portfolio credit risk management and regulation
• Economic capital estimation, LGD and EAD, IFRS9
• Stress testing and scenario analysis
• The incorporation of macroeconomic factors into risk modelling
• Dynamic risk modelling
• Attrition, churn, and collections scoring
• AI/ML and deep learning for credit risk
• “Big Data” in credit analytics
• Risk assessment of small businesses
• Profit scoring and risk based pricing
• Corporate default modelling
• Optimisation and credit scoring
• Affordability and financial vulnerability, transparency, and fairness
• Fraud scoring and financial crimes
• Model risk

Submission Guidelines

Authors should submit a cover letter and a manuscript by 31 January 2024 , via the Journal’s online submission site, Editorial Manager (EM). Please see the Author Instructions on the web site if you have not yet submitted a paper through EM. When prompted for the article type, please select Original Research. On the Additional Information screen you will be asked if the submission belongs to a special issue, choose yes and the special issue’s title, Credit Risk Modelling Innovations in a Changing World. Manuscripts submitted after the deadline may not be considered for the special issue and may be transferred, if accepted, to a regular issue.

Instructions for authors

Papers will be subject to a strict review process under the supervision of the Guest Editors, and accepted papers will be published online individually, before print publication.

Special Issue Guest Editors

Professor Galina Andreeva, Personal Chair of Societal Aspects of Credit, Credit Research Centre, University of Edinburgh Business School, 29 Buccleuch Place, Edinburgh, UK

Professor Jonathan Crook, Emeritus Professor of Business Economics, Credit Research Centre, University of Edinburgh Business School, 29 Buccleuch Place, Edinburgh, UK

Professor Christophe Mues, Professor of Data Science & Information Systems, Southampton Business School, University of Southampton, Southampton SO17 1BJ, UK

The Credit Scoring and Credit Control Conference serves as a pivotal convergence point for both academic experts and industry practitioners in quantitative risk modelling. Our 18th conference took place from August 30 to September 1, 2023, hosted at the customary Edinburgh Pollock Halls.

This year's conference garnered substantial attention, attracting nearly 400 attendees. Among these, 20% represented universities, including Edinburgh, Cambridge, Imperial College, Southampton, University of Western Ontario, Reykjavik, Humboldt Berlin, Shanghai, Nottingham Ningbo, KU Leuven, Louvain, Masaryk, Warsaw, Muenster, Nelson Mandela, University of Technology Sydney, and Hope College. The remaining 80% comprised professionals from prominent banking institutions, financial companies, consulting firms, and regulatory authorities, including the Bank of England, Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia, Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta, Bank of Ireland, Experian, Equifax, TransUnion, Deloitte, Virgin Money, Barclays, Nationwide BS, FICO, Creditinfo, and Moody’s Analytics.

In a remarkable display of diversity, delegates coming from 166 different organizations, representing 34 countries worldwide. These included the UK, US, Germany, Austria, Liechtenstein, Croatia, Poland, Brunei, China, Peru, Czech Republic, Mexico, Luxembourg, Hungary, Chile, Iceland, Finland, South Africa, Greece, France, Norway, South Korea, Brazil, Sweden, Belgium, Denmark, Australia, Canada, Cyprus, Argentina, Latvia, and Azerbaijan.

The conference featured over 100 rigorously selected research papers, organized into five parallel sessions, with an almost equal division between academic and practitioner authors. The presentations delved into the most pressing issues in credit risk, such as AI and machine learning applications, fairness and algorithmic bias, and the impact of the cost of living crisis and climate change.

Notably, the Best Paper Award, sponsored by Paragon, was presented to Stephen Miller from Equifax for his paper titled "A Flexible Machine Learning Approach to Repayment Capacity Estimation for Affordability Assessment," co-authored with Lewis Jordan, Felipe Avila, Terry Woodford, and Matthew Turner.

Our esteemed keynote speakers contributed significantly to the conference's success. They included:

• Catarina Souza, Head of Division, Model Development and Review at the Bank of England, whose keynote was titled "The evolving role of Model Risk Management (MRM) in a changing world: A regulator's perspective."
• Michaela Pagel, Roderick H. Cushman Associate Professor at Columbia Business School, Finance Division, who presented on "New Behavioral Research on Household Credit."
• Dr. Scott Zoldi, Chief Analytics Officer at FICO, who discussed "Responsible AI in Credit Risk: Palatable, Interpretable, Ethical, and Auditable."
• Dr. Joseph L. Breeden, CEO of Deep Future Analytics LLC, whose keynote addressed "The Challenges and Model Risk Management of Machine Learning Models."

In addition to these thought-provoking sessions, the conference also featured pre-conference workshops, poster sessions, and numerous networking opportunities. The conference organizers extend their heartfelt gratitude to all participants and sponsors, including Experian, FICO, Paragon Business Solutions, 4most, TransUnion, ACTICO, MRMIA, DirectID, and ThreeCs Limited.

This gathering will bring together credit risk professionals from both academia and industry, providing them with the opportunity to delve into their work alongside like-minded individuals who share their enthusiasm and understand the challenges they face.

In the meantime, you can tune in to a podcast that offers a comprehensive overview of the conference and its illustrious history. This event stands out as a unique platform that effectively bridges the gap between academic perspectives and practical insights from leading lenders. By bringing together academia, researchers, software companies, and consulting firms, this conference facilitates invaluable discussions, collaborations, and learning opportunities for all participants.

For a deeper understanding of the conference and its significance, listen to the full podcast.

Listen to the podcast

Register

Remember to register by the 9 August 2023.

Register now