As part of the CGAP IT Innovation Series this technical note on credit scoring examines the technology and methods currently in use by Microfinance Institutions (MFIs). Credit scoring enables loan officers to supplement subjective decision-making with data driven analysis. Scoring technology analyses historical client data, identifies links between client characteristics and behaviour, and assumes those links will persist to predict how clients will act. Credit scoring can help a MFI analyse how its clients have behaved in the past to make more reliable loan application decisions, devise more effective collections strategies, better target marketing efforts, and increase client retention. The author provides a cost-benefit analysis of this technology concluding that credit scoring may not be the best choice for MFIs that engage in joint-liability or group lending schemes as the behaviour of clients is often determined by group dynamics rather than individual client characteristics that can be quantitatively analysed. The case studies from ACCIÓN International affiliates BancoSol, Mibanco and Banco Solidario, Women’s World Banking (WWB) affiliates in Colombia and Unibanka in Latvia provide the author with lessons for implementation and could be used as a checklist when considering credit scoring technology. They are as follows: - Ensure high quality data
- Consider building automatic data collection tools
- Monitor scorecard effectiveness
- Make full use of the potential of scoring
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