Journal of Soft Computing Exploration
Vol. 7 No. 3 (2026): September 2026

Comparative performance of MLP, CNN, TabNet, and FT-Transformer for credit risk prediction with TPOT  hyperparameter optimization

Much Aziz Muslim (Department of Computer Science, Universitas Negeri Semarang, Indonesia)
Dwika Ananda Agustina Pertiwi (Faculty of Technology Management and Business, Universiti Tun Hussein Onn Malaysia, Johor, Malaysia)
Jumanto Unjung (Department of Computer Science, Universitas Negeri Semarang, Indonesia)
Sidiq Noor Kharisma (Department of Computer Science, Universitas Negeri Semarang, Indonesia)
Gea Destadia Al-Zahra (Department of Computer Science, Universitas Negeri Semarang, Indonesia)
Shahrul Nizam Bin Salahudin (Faculty of Technology Management and Business, Universiti Tun Hussein Onn Malaysia, Johor, Malaysia)



Article Info

Publish Date
28 Sep 2026

Abstract

Credit risk prediction is important for supporting accurate lending decisions and reducing the potential risk of loan default. However, deep learning performance on tabular credit data can vary according to model architecture and TPOT hyperparameter configuration. Therefore, this study aims to comparatively evaluate Multilayer Perceptron, Convolutional Neural Network, TabNet, and FT-Transformer for credit risk prediction and examine the effect of TPOT hyperparameter optimization. The study uses the Lending Club dataset from 2007–2020, with 2,000 records from 2019–2020 sampled for analysis. The data were preprocessed through feature selection, missing-value handling, outlier treatment, categorical encoding, and feature scaling, while Synthetic Minority Over-sampling Technique was applied to address class imbalance. A stratified 70:30 train-test split was used, and the models were evaluated using accuracy, precision, recall, and F1-score before and after optimization. The results show that all four models improved after optimization, although the magnitude varied. Convolutional Neural Network achieved the highest optimized accuracy of 95.50%, while TabNet achieved the highest recall of 86.05% and F1-score of 86.29%. Multilayer Perceptron obtained the highest precision of 91.02%, whereas TabNet achieved the largest F1-score improvement of 6.84 percentage points. Overall, TPOT hyperparameter optimization improved model performance, with TabNet providing the most favorable overall balance for credit risk prediction.

Copyrights © 2026






Journal Info

Abbrev

journal

Publisher

Subject

Computer Science & IT Control & Systems Engineering Decision Sciences, Operations Research & Management Electrical & Electronics Engineering

Description

The journal focuses on publishing high-quality, original research and review articles in the field of Soft Computing, Informatics and Computer Science, emphasizing the development, application, and rigorous evaluation of Advanced Computational Methods, Artificial Intelligence (AI), Machine Learning ...