Sound branch cash management for less: A low-cost forecasting algorithm under uncertain demand García Cabello, Julia Lobillo, F.J. Cash management at banking branch-level Real bank data processing Demand forecasting algorithm Stochastic processes Financial support from the excellence project of the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation “Mecanismos de resolución de crisis: cambios en el sistema financiero y efectos en la Economía real” (P12-SEJ-2463). The first author also thanks the financial support for the project received from by of the Regional Government of Andalusia “GAMMA (Grupo de Análisis Microeconómico y Macroeconómico Aplicado)” (SEJ340). This paper deals with cash management for bank branches, under the assumption that branches have a role to play in the improvement of global bank institution performance. In the current scenario of unprecedented pressure amongst banks to keep costs under control, our contribution is the design of a sound and low-cost algorithm to optimize branch cash holdings using software implementation in SageMath. It is accompanied by data processing based on 60,000 real banking records. This is the first academic paper to run such an extensive database at branch level. We find that our algorithm by and large performs well when forecasting the cash amounts that the branch might require from the central hub to satisfy all branch necessities, avoiding the generation of either surplus or shortage of cash. It is also extremely easy to implement in daily branching practice, leading to an overall reduction in operating costs. In addition, our algorithm may be easily adjusted as required and be tailor-made to the special requirements of each banking institution. 2023-12-14T13:21:49Z 2023-12-14T13:21:49Z 2017 info:eu-repo/semantics/article Published version: García Cabello, J., & Lobillo, F. J. (2017). Sound branch cash management for less: a low-cost forecasting algorithm under uncertain demand. Omega, 70, 118-134. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.omega.2016.09.005 https://hdl.handle.net/10481/86220 10.1016/j.omega.2016.09.005 eng http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/ info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 License Elsevier