The value of official website information in the credit risk evaluation of SMEs

• Main Authors: JIANG, Cuiqing, YIN, Chang, TANG, Qian, WANG, Zhao
• Format: text
• Language: English
• Published: Institutional Knowledge at Singapore Management University 2023
• Subjects: Credit risk; Information asymmetry; Official website; SMEs; Asian Studies; Databases and Information Systems; Finance and Financial Management
• Online Access: https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/sis_research/8224; https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/context/sis_research/article/9227/viewcontent/Value_Official_website_Info_av.pdf
• Institution: Singapore Management University

The official websites of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) not only reflect the willingness of an enterprise to disclose information voluntarily, but also can provide information related to the enterprises’ historical operations and performance. This research investigates the value of official website information in the credit risk evaluation of SMEs. To study the effect of different kinds of website information on credit risk evaluation, we propose a framework to mine effective features from two kinds of information disclosed on the official website of a SME—design-based information and content-based information—in predicting its credit risk. We select the SMEs in the software and information technology services industry and find that including content-based information in models significantly improves the prediction accuracy. Specifically, the depth and dynamics metrics of the content-based information convey SME performance and mitigate the information asymmetry between SMEs and financial institutions.