An integrated two-stage methodology for optimising the accuracy of performance classification models

In this paper we propose a two-stage methodology to classify the non-banking financial institutions (NFIs) based on their financial performance. The first stage of the methodology consists of grouping the companies in similar financial performance classes (e.g.: “good”, “average”, “poor” performance classes). We optimise the allocation of the observations within the performance clusters by applying an enhanced version of an observation re-allocation procedure proposed in our previous work. Next, based on the result of the grouping phase, we construct a performance class variable by attaching a performance label to each data row. Then, in the second phase of our methodology, we propose a feed-forward neural-network classification model that maps the input space to the newly-constructed performance class variable. This model allows us to forecast the performance of new companies as data become available.