A NEW contract with the Halifax for Hampshire-based De La Rue will roll out a county-developed cash management system to more than 800 bank branches and 2,100 cash machines round the country.

The deal is worth more than £650,000, and De La Rue forecasts it will save the bank up to 35 per cent of its cash processing costs.

It is set to achieve this by automatically forecasting shifts in cash demand on a daily basis by analysing changes in demand and reducing labour intensive processes of controlling stocks of cash at branches, and in machines.

John Walsh, Halifax head of banking services, said: "At present all cash orders are placed by our branch managers whose main priority is to ensure they do not run out. An analysis of our current system showed that we could make substantial savings on the amount of cash held.''

The bank plans to initially implement the software across its cash machines and extend it to remaining machines and branches next year.

Margaret Rice-Jones, managing director of cash processing at De La Rue, said: "We shall be working very closely with the Halifax to ensure that the system in implemented across the whole network within an agreed time."

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