4 ms·

I saw plenty of reporting on this, and nearly all of it was editorialized: it was being treated as evidence that customer savings weren't available, when the ac

I saw plenty of reporting on this, and nearly all of it was editorialized: it was being treated as evidence that customer savings weren't available, when the actual reason is that bank branches simply don't keep massive vaults of money on hand. If you have a bank account, you can always withdraw your savings (at least up to the amount insured, in the event of a bank collapse). But there has never been a guarantee that you can walk up to a teller and leave with your life savings in a bag; you should always call ahead and coordinate with the bank to ensure that they have the physical paper available. In many cases, they'll redirect you to a specialized or more central branch.

Spivak 4y ago
And 99% of the time people do that is because they’re moving banks and they leave with a cashiers check instead of cash.
- omginternets 4y ago
  So, to be clear, you can’t actually liquidate your account.
  - woodruffw 4y ago
    You can always liquidate your account. What you can't do is make it some random branch's problem in a spur-of-the-moment decision; you have to plan it with them.
  - Spivak 4y ago
    No, it’s that it is incredibly rare for someone to actually want to liquidate their account because the reason people do is usually to move banks and that use-case is better served with a cashier’s check. It’s not at all surprising that random branches don’t keep that much cash.
  - anigbrowl 4y ago
    No, that doesn't follow. You can definitely remove large amounts of cash, you just have to think ahead a little. Also, you have overlooked the fact that for many people a cashier's check is more convenient than a large wad of cash, especially if their sole object is to deposit it at a competing institution.
wara23arish 4y ago
I used to work for a bank in the US as a teller before 2019. You absolutely can walk in and ask for 12K in cash. That amount is normal. If you’re asking for 30-50K then coordination is needed, and its not because money is not available, simply because youd need to open the vault and that takes time.
- woodruffw 4y ago
  I think there's a large degree of variance here: I've been in places that would have struggled to hand over $1000 in cash, since they might have had only 2-3 times that total on hand for the entire week. That was in a small town, but that's my point: anecdotes about being unable to withdraw money are more about logistics than a banking collapse being hidden from the public.
  - vl 4y ago
    This was in a branch that before pandemic would fork out 10k easily. I’m not the only one who experienced this - my friends experienced this across different banks in different states.
    - woodruffw 4y ago
      This doesn't contradict what I've said, and doesn't imply financial instability: it's not particularly surprising that banks weren't receiving as many cash deliveries during the first year of the pandemic, or that demand for cash withdrawals was higher than normal.

Spivak 4y ago

And 99% of the time people do that is because they’re moving banks and they leave with a cashiers check instead of cash.

omginternets 4y ago
So, to be clear, you can’t actually liquidate your account.
- woodruffw 4y ago
  You can always liquidate your account. What you can't do is make it some random branch's problem in a spur-of-the-moment decision; you have to plan it with them.
- Spivak 4y ago
  No, it’s that it is incredibly rare for someone to actually want to liquidate their account because the reason people do is usually to move banks and that use-case is better served with a cashier’s check. It’s not at all surprising that random branches don’t keep that much cash.
- anigbrowl 4y ago
  No, that doesn't follow. You can definitely remove large amounts of cash, you just have to think ahead a little. Also, you have overlooked the fact that for many people a cashier's check is more convenient than a large wad of cash, especially if their sole object is to deposit it at a competing institution.

wara23arish 4y ago

I used to work for a bank in the US as a teller before 2019. You absolutely can walk in and ask for 12K in cash. That amount is normal. If you’re asking for 30-50K then coordination is needed, and its not because money is not available, simply because youd need to open the vault and that takes time.

woodruffw 4y ago
I think there's a large degree of variance here: I've been in places that would have struggled to hand over $1000 in cash, since they might have had only 2-3 times that total on hand for the entire week. That was in a small town, but that's my point: anecdotes about being unable to withdraw money are more about logistics than a banking collapse being hidden from the public.
- vl 4y ago
  This was in a branch that before pandemic would fork out 10k easily. I’m not the only one who experienced this - my friends experienced this across different banks in different states.
  - woodruffw 4y ago
    This doesn't contradict what I've said, and doesn't imply financial instability: it's not particularly surprising that banks weren't receiving as many cash deliveries during the first year of the pandemic, or that demand for cash withdrawals was higher than normal.