Case: Generate Summary Statistics in Excel

Company summary

LendingClub is a peer-to-peer marketplace where borrowers and investors are matched together. The goal of LendingClub is to reduce the costs associated with these banking transactions and make borrowing less expensive and investment more engaging. LendingClub provides data on loans that have been approved and rejected since 2007, including the assigned interest rate and type of loan. This provides several opportunities for data analysis.

Calculate Summary Statistics in Excel

We use Excel for basic validation. Remember, there is a limitation on the number of records that Excel can handle, so this is best for smaller- to medium-sized files. Excel’s toolbar at the bottom of the window provides quick access to a summary of any selected values.

• Open your web browser and go to: https://www.lendingclub.com/info/download-data.action.
• In the Download Loan Data section, choose “2015” from the drop-down list, then click Download.
• Locate your downloaded zip files on your computer, and extract the .csv files to a convenient location (e.g., desktop or Documents).
• Open the LoanStats3c.csv file in Excel.
• Select the [loan_amnt] column. At the bottom of the window, you will see the Average, Count, and Sum calculations, shown in LAB Exhibit 2-4A. Compare those to the validation given by LendingClub:

• Funded loans: $3,503,840,175
• Number of approved loans: 235,629

Q1. Do your numbers match the numbers provided by LendingClub? What explains the discrepancy, if any?

• Right-click on the summary toolbar and choose Numerical Count from the list. You should now see four values in the bar.

Q2. Does the Numerical Count provide a more useful/accurate value for validating your data? Why or why not do you think that is the case?

Q3. What other summary values might be useful for validating your data?

Required: Answer all of the questions from above and submit your Excel Data File.

Your well-written paper must be 3-4 pages, in addition to title and reference pages.