Creditworthiness Classification Utilizing AHP-SVM Based on 5C Criteria

Credit risk occurs when borrowers fail to meet loan repayment obligations, posing significant challenges to the financial stability of lending institutions. Accurate classification of creditworthiness is essential to mitigate such risks. This study proposes a hybrid approach that integrates the Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) and Support Vector Machine (SVM) to evaluate borrower eligibility based on the 5C model: Character, Capacity, Capital, Collateral, and Condition. The AHP method is used to assign weights to credit attributes based on expert judgment, while SVM performs the classification. Three experiments were conducted to compare the effectiveness of different feature selection strategies: (1) expert-defined 5C attributes, (2) AHP weighting conducted by experts, and (3) AHP weighting conducted by non-experts. Experimental results show that the 5C-SVM model achieved the highest performance with 96% accuracy, followed by AHP-SVM (expert) with 95% and AHP-SVM (non-expert) with 93%. The findings indicate that expert involvement in the feature selection process significantly improves model performance. This study demonstrates the effectiveness of combining domain knowledge with machine learning in building intelligent decision support systems for credit risk analysis. The proposed approach offers practical value for financial institutions seeking more objective, accurate, and consistent credit evaluation processes. Furthermore, it opens new opportunities for integrating expert-based reasoning with automated analytics in financial decision-making.