Soft Information and Default Prediction in Cooperative and Social Banks

In this paper, to begin with, we define soft information as qualitative, subjective information produced by banks through the establishment of long-term lending relationships. We then highlight the importance of soft information for cooperative and social banks in the screening, pricing and monitoring of their borrowers as a result of their institutional features (governance, values, etc.) and the specificities of their clientele. We finally emphasise the value of qualitative (economic, social and/or environmental) factors stemming from the production of soft information in predicting credit default events.