In modern financial information systems, the growing complexity of credit risk assessment for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) creates increasing demands for highly accurate, scalable, and computationally efficient predictive models.Traditional credit scoring approaches based on classical statistical methods and conventional neural networks often demonstrate limited performance when processing nonlinear financial dependencies, noisy datasets, and highdimensional feature spaces.These limitations become especially significant under restricted training conditions, where the amount of labeled financial data is limited and rapid model convergence is required for practical deployment in banking and risk management environments.In such conditions, hybrid quantum-classical machine learning has emerged as a promising direction that combines the representational capabilities of classical neural networks with the computational potential of quantum variational circuits.This paper proposes a hybrid quantum-classical neural network architecture designed for SME credit risk assessment under limited training conditions.The proposed model integrates classical dense layers with a variational quantum circuit that performs nonlinear feature transformation through quantum embedding, parameterized quantum gates, and entanglement operations.Particular attention is devoted to efficient data encoding and optimization of variational circuit depth in order to reduce training complexity while preserving predictive stability.
In modern financial information systems, the growing complexity of credit risk assessment for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) creates increasing demands for highly accurate, scalable, and computationally efficient predictive models.Traditional credit scoring approaches based on classical statistical methods and conventional neural networks often demonstrate limited performance when processing nonlinear financial dependencies, noisy datasets, and highdimensional feature spaces.These limitations become especially significant under restricted training conditions, where the amount of labeled financial data is limited and rapid model convergence is required for practical deployment in banking and risk management environments.In such conditions, hybrid quantum-classical machine learning has emerged as a promising direction that combines the representational capabilities of classical neural networks with the computational potential of quantum variational circuits.This paper proposes a hybrid quantum-classical neural network architecture designed for SME credit risk assessment under limited training conditions.The proposed model integrates classical dense layers with a variational quantum circuit that performs nonlinear feature transformation through quantum embedding, parameterized quantum gates, and entanglement operations.Particular attention is devoted to efficient data encoding and optimization of variational circuit depth in order to reduce training complexity while preserving predictive stability.
This study investigates the integration of quantum circuits with classical neural networks for enhancing credit scoring for small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). We introduce a hybrid quantum–classical model, focusing on the synergy between quantum and classical rather than comparing the performance of separate quantum and classical models. Our model incorporates a quantum layer into a traditional neural network, achieving notable reductions in training time. We apply this innovative framework to a binary classification task with a proprietary real-world classical credit default dataset for SMEs in Singapore. The results indicate that our hybrid model achieves efficient training, requiring significantly fewer epochs (350) compared to its classical counterpart (3500) for a similar predictive accuracy. However, we observed a decrease in performance when expanding the model beyond 12 qubits or when adding additional quantum classifier blocks. This paper also considers practical challenges faced when deploying such models on quantum simulators and actual quantum computers. Overall, our quantum–classical hybrid model for credit scoring reveals its potential in industry, despite encountering certain scalability limitations and practical challenges.
Quantum machine learning has been shown to offer exponential computational boosts compared to current classical models through the exploitation of quantum mechanical properties such as entanglement and superposition. The finance sub field of fin-tech, where financial services are constructed around a customer's demands, is believed to benefit with the use of hybrid quantum-classical machine learning algorithms. Classical algorithms struggle to create accurate, complex, and prompt financial analytical models resulting in over 25% of small and medium sized financial institutions losing customers each year. This study explores whether a hybrid quantum neural network (QCNN) design provides a quantum advantage in either accuracy or time in the fin tech task of credit defaulting. The hybrid quantum neural network model uses a variational quantum circuit built on a continuous variable architecture. The data flow of the network consists of a classical network, quantum data encoding (which uses quantum squeezers, interferometers, displacement, and Kerr gates), QCNN, and measurement. Although the quantum model took a longer time to train, it reported a higher prediction accuracy of 97.63% compared to 91.20% for the classical network. This work demonstrates the future implications of quantum integration in the financial field and the quantum advantage it offers on classification tasks.
With Deep learning and quantum computing are emerging technologies with transformative potential in financial risk assessment, optimization, and fraud detection. The integration of these fields can significantly enhance the efficiency and accuracy of financial decision-making processes. However, existing fraud detection methods often suffer from high false positives, slow processing times, and limited adaptability to complex fraud patterns. Traditional machine learning models struggle with scalability and computational efficiency when dealing with large-scale financial data. To address these issues, we propose the Quantum-Inspired Neural Networks for Fraud Detection (Q-INN-FD) framework, which leverages quantum-inspired computing principles to enhance neural network architectures. The framework incorporates quantum-inspired feature encoding, variational quantum circuits, and hybrid classical-quantum learning mechanisms to improve pattern recognition in financial transactions. These techniques enable more efficient fraud detection by enhancing model robustness and reducing computational overhead. The proposed method is applied to financial datasets to detect fraudulent transactions, optimize risk assessment models, and improve decision-making in real-time scenarios. Our findings demonstrate that Q-INN-FD achieves higher accuracy, faster processing, and reduced false positive rates compared to traditional deep learning approaches. This paper highlights the potential of quantum-inspired deep learning for revolutionizing financial security and risk management.
Financial sectors are based on credit risk modeling to make decisions on lending and regulatory compliance. Although classical machine learning has been used to increase predictiveness, such models are faced with mounting limitations as complex and high-dimensional financial data is processed. Quantum Machine Learning (QML) is an aspect of quantum computing that has offered a potential resolution to the issues, integrating quantum computing and machine learning to speed up the calculations and extract more insight into the patterns. QML has theoretical benefits in classifying credit risk via Quantum Support Vector Machines, Quantum Neural Networks, and hybrid quantum-classical models, through superposition and entanglement. Initial applications show good performance in portfolio optimization, default forecasting, and simulation of risks with the existing hardware constraints. QML demonstrates specific potential in the context of using non-traditional data sources and finding hidden correlations that could reflect creditworthiness, which may allow inclusion-based lending practices without sacrificing risk assessment. With the development of quantum hardware, the financial services sector will gradually adopt quantum capabilities via realistic hybrid strategies that eventually revolutionize the way credit risk is assessed in the world markets.
Recovery rate prediction plays a pivotal role in bond investment strategies, enhancing risk assessment, optimizing portfolio allocation, improving pricing accuracy, and supporting effective credit risk management. However, forecasting faces challenges like high-dimensional features, small sample sizes, and overfitting. We propose a hybrid Quantum Machine Learning model incorporating Parameterized Quantum Circuits (PQC) within a neural network framework. PQCs inherently preserve unitarity, avoiding computationally costly orthogonality constraints, while amplitude encoding enables exponential data compression, reducing qubit requirements logarithmically. Applied to a global dataset of 1,725 observations (1996–2023), our method achieved superior accuracy (RMSE 0.228) compared to classical neural networks (0.246) and quantum models with angle encoding (0.242), with efficient computation times. This work highlights the potential of hybrid quantum-classical architectures in advancing recovery rate forecasting.
Abstract Quantum Machine Learning (QML) presents a novel paradigm for financial modeling, particularly for the challenge of few-shot credit risk assessment, which is a critical issue in inclusive finance where data scarcity limits conventional models. To address this, we propose and implement a hybrid quantum-classical workflow. Our methodology first utilizes a classical model ensemble for dimensionality reduction, creating a dense, three-dimensional feature representation from the original data. This representation then serves as input to a Quantum Neural Network (QNN), trained with the parameter-shift rule, which acts as the core classifier. The framework’s efficacy was validated through numerical simulations and on real hardware using the Quafu Cloud Platform’s ScQ-P21 superconducting processor. On a real-world credit dataset of 279 samples, our QNN achieved a robust average AUC of 0.852 ± 0.027 in simulations and an impressive AUC of 0.89 in the hardware experiment. This performance surpasses a suite of classical benchmarks, with a particularly strong result on the recall metric—crucial for minimizing false negatives in risk control. This study provides a pragmatic blueprint for applying QML to data-constrained financial scenarios and offers valuable empirical evidence of its potential in the NISQ era.