Modelling Proxy Credit Cruves Using Recurrent Neural Networks

Abstract: Since the global financial crisis of 2008, regulatory bodies worldwide have implementedincreasingly stringent requirements for measuring and pricing default risk in financialderivatives. Counterparty Credit Risk (CCR) serves as the measure for default risk infinancial derivatives, and Credit Valuation Adjustment (CVA) is the pricing method used toincorporate this default risk into derivatives prices. To calculate the CVA, one needs the risk-neutral Probability of Default (PD) for the counterparty, which is the centre in this type ofderivative.The traditional method for calculating risk-neutral probabilities of default involves constructingcredit curves, calibrated using the credit derivative Credit Default Swap (CDS). However,liquidity issues in CDS trading present a major challenge, as the majority of counterpartieslack liquid CDS spreads. This poses the difficult question of how to model risk-neutral PDwithout liquid CDS spreads.The current method for generating proxy credit curves, introduced by the Japanese BankNomura in 2013, involves a cross-sectional linear regression model. Although this model issufficient in most cases, it often generates credit curves unsuitable for larger counterpartiesin more volatile times. In this thesis, we introduce two Long Short-Term Memory (LSTM)models trained on similar entities, which use CDS spreads as input. Our introduced modelsshow some improvement in generating proxy credit curves compared to the Nomura model,especially during times of higher volatility. While the result were more in line with the tradedCDS-market, there remains room for improvement in the model structure by using a moreextensive dataset.