AI-powered credit risk assessment for African MSMEs using alternative data and Smolagents
# MSME Credit Risk Scoring System
An AI-powered credit risk assessment system for Micro, Small, and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) in Africa, enhanced with **Smolagents** for intelligent insights.
## Project Overview
This system addresses the **$360B financing gap** for African MSMEs by leveraging alternative data sources and machine learning to assess creditworthiness beyond traditional methods.
### Key Features
- **97.5% Repayment Rate** (Target: >95%)
- **2.5% Default Rate** (Target: 95%
- Default Rate < 3%
## Key Features by Importance
Top 10 predictive features:
1. **Previous Default** (15%) - Strong negative signal
2. **Payment Score** (12%) - Reliability indicator
3. **Business Age** (10%) - Experience matters
4. **Debt-to-Income** (9%) - Capacity assessment
5. **MM Tenure** (8%) - Transaction history
6. **Social Score** (7%) - Network trust
7. **Transaction Volume** (7%) - Business activity
8. **Business Permit** (6%) - Formalization
9. **Loan Amount** (5%) - Exposure size
10. **Country Risk** (4%) - Geographic factor
## Streamlit Dashboard
### Features:
1. **Risk Assessment Tab**
- Real-time default probability
- Risk classification
- Approval recommendations
- Key risk/protective factors
2. **Portfolio Analytics**
- Financial metrics
- Business maturity indicators
- Payment behavior analysis
3. **AI Insights** (Smolagents)
- Intelligent feature analysis
- Personalized recommendations
- Model improvement suggestions
4. **About**
- System documentation
- Performance metrics
- Technology stack
## Deployment
### Deploy to Streamlit Cloud
## Documentation
- **Feature Engineering**: 43+ derived features from alternative data
- **Model Training**: XGBoost, Logistic Regression with SMOTE
- **Evaluation**: ROC curves, threshold optimization, portfolio analysis
- **Smolagents**: AI-powered insights and recommendations
## Quarterly Updates
The system supports quarterly model iterations:
1. Collect new loan data
2. Run feature engineer …