•This paper is the first to apply dynamic time-varying efficiency scores in distress prediction.•Malmquist DEA is used to produce dynamic efficiency scores over several periods.•Various efficiency scores are compared in discrete time hazard models.•A comparison is made between generic and industry-specific models. Creditors such as banks frequently use expert systems to support their decisions when issuing loans and credit assessment has been an important area of application of machine learning techniques for decades. In practice, banks are often required to provide the rationale behind their decisions in addition to being able to predict the performance of companies when assessing corporate applicants for loans. One solution is to use Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) to evaluate multiple decision-making units (DMUs or companies) which are ranked according to the best practice in their industrial sector. A linear programming algorithm is employed to calculate corporate efficiency as a measure to distinguish healthy companies from those in financial distress. This paper extends the cross-sectional DEA models to time-varying Malmquist DEA, since dynamic predictive models allow one to incorporate changes over time. This decision-support system can adjust the efficiency frontier intelligently over time and make robust predictions. Results based on a sample of 742 Chinese listed companies observed over 10 years suggest that Malmquist DEA offers insights into the competitive position of a company in addition to accurate financial distress predictions based on the DEA efficiency measures.