A novel algorithm for clearing financial obligations between companies -- an application within the Romanian Ministry of Economy

TL;DR

This paper presents a set of efficient graph algorithms designed to optimize netting solutions for settling financial obligations between companies, demonstrated on Romanian economic data.

Contribution

It introduces novel graph algorithms for optimal company netting, applicable at a national scale, and validates their efficiency on real-world data.

Findings

Algorithms compute optimal netting efficiently

Classical graph algorithms are effective for modern financial problems

Significant potential for economic impact in country-scale netting

Abstract

The concept of clearing or netting, as defined in the glossaries of European Central Bank, has a great impact on the economy of a country influencing the exchanges and the interactions between companies. On short, netting refers to an alternative to the usual way in which the companies make the payments to each other: it is an agreement in which each party sets off amounts it owes against amounts owed to it. Based on the amounts two or more parties owe between them, the payment is substituted by a direct settlement. In this paper we introduce a set of graph algorithms which provide optimal netting solutions for the scale of a country economy. The set of algorithms computes results in an efficient time and is tested on invoice data provided by the Romanian Ministry of Economy. Our results show that classical graph algorithms are still capable of solving very important modern problems.