Forecasting ATM Cash Demand Before and During the COVID-19 Pandemic Using an Extensive Evaluation of Statistical and Machine Learning Models

Abstract

The overarching goal of this paper is to accurately forecast ATM cash demand for periods both before and during the COVID-19 pandemic. To achieve this, first, ATMs are categorized based on accessibility and surrounding environmental factors that significantly affect the cash withdrawal pattern. Then, several statistical and machine learning models under different algorithms and strategies are employed. In aiming to provide the feature matrix for machine learning models, some new influential variables are added to the literature. Finally, a modified fitness measure is proposed for the first time to correctly choose the most promising model by considering both the prediction errors and accuracy of direction’s change simultaneously. The results obtained by a comprehensive analysis—a statistical analysis together with grid search and k-fold cross-validation techniques—reveal that (i) category-wise prediction enhances forecasting quality; (ii) before COVID-19 and in times when there are only minor disturbances in withdrawal patterns, forecasting quality is higher, and in general, the machine learning models can more appropriately forecast ATM’s cash demand; (iii) despite studies in the literature, sophisticated models will not always outperform simpler models. It is found that during COVID-19 and in times when there is a sudden shock in demand and massive volatility in withdrawal patterns, the statistical models of the autoregressive integrated moving average (ARIMA) and seasonal ARIMA (SARIMA) can mainly provide better forecasting likely due to high performance of such models for short-term prediction, while minimizing overfitting.