Neural Networks in Finance: A Descriptive Systematic Review

Traditional statistical methods pose challenges in data analysis due to irregularity in the financial data. To improve accuracy, financial researchers use machine learning architectures for the past two decades. Neural Networks (NN) are a widely used architecture in financial research. Despite the wider usage, NN application in finance is yet to be well defined. Hence, this descriptive study classifies and examines the NN application in finance into four broad categories i.e., investment prediction, credit evaluation, financial distress, and other financial applications. Likewise, the review classifies the NN methods used under each category into standard, optimized and hybrid NN. Further, accuracy measures used by the research work widely differ, in turn, pose challenges for comparison of a NN under each category and reduces the scope of formalizing a theory to choose optimum network model under each category.