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The local branch of my bank changed to having no tellers, ATM-only. There's a couple people inside to talk loans and such, but they have no cash. I wonder if th

The local branch of my bank changed to having no tellers, ATM-only. There's a couple people inside to talk loans and such, but they have no cash. I wonder if this is one of the reasons (besides cost savings having less employees).

chiph 3y ago
My credit union did this several years ago - marketing them as "Cyber Branches". They're basically ATMs with video conferencing added. There are advantages, like increased employee & customer safety and lower costs. But I like to use uncirculated bills as gifts and now there is no one there to get them for me.
OfSanguineFire 3y ago
That is a pretty popular development, I have encountered banks where cash withdrawals are ATM-only for nearly a decade. What sucks, however, is if the bank imposes a fee after X number of ATM transactions (sometimes as little as two withdrawals). Then, with a maximum ATM withdrawal of 300€ or so, withdrawing a couple of thousand is going to incur a larger amount of fees than with the old cash from the teller system. Of course, with the world moving away from cash, fewer and fewer people will be affected by this.
corbezzoli 3y ago
I think that’s great, I don’t know what’s taking so long. ATM that dispense money have been around for decades, why isn’t the other way around the default by now? Using the ATM literally saves the bank money.
- toast0 3y ago
  ATMs have taken deposits since forever? Deposits without envelopes where the machine images checks and counts bills is very common in my experience, and it started long enough ago that I can't remember when it was. Sometime in 2010s, I think.
  - ghaff 3y ago
    For that matter, with my (US) bank I can just take a picture of the check with the app on the smartphone. If you get a lot of checks, deposit one at a time methods can be a bit slow and tedious--but that's less and less common.
  - corbezzoli 3y ago
    In the US maybe, in Europe I feel that they’re not the norm.
    - Symbiote 3y ago
      toast0 might be very young if 2010 is "forever" ago. I remember depositing banknotes in ATMs in Britain in the early 2000s. It was only a single ATM at the bank branch. You had to put the notes in an envelope and feed that into the machine. They would check the amount later in the day. At some point the machine would take the notes one at a time, and I've seen these in Britain and Denmark, but I deposit cash less than once a year in any case.
      - toast0 3y ago
        I was discussing two different time frames. Envelopeless deposits are circa 2010. Deposits in envelopes go back as far as I recognize ATMs (which is back when BofA was calling them 'versatellers', but I'd rather not date myself specifically) Here's a weird ebay auction of receipts from 1997 showing deposits: https://www.ebay.com/itm/334119399422 https://www.ebay.com/itm/334119399422 and a pretty good deal on long distance!
ghaff 3y ago
I'm always a bit surprised by just how much prime downtown real estate sizable bank branches take up. I can't imagine I'm that atypical in rarely using an ATM much less other local banking services. Presumably small businesses deal with banks much more frequently but banks still seem to take up a big physical footprint for the amount that most people use them.
- seanmcdirmid 3y ago
  Those businesses that still take cash often have to go to the bank once a day, especially if they don’t have a safe. So I can see the branches existing for that reason alone.
  - ghaff 3y ago
    Yeah, I suspect that businesses are a big part of why banks still have the amount of retail footprint that they do.
    - eastbound 3y ago
      ATM -> retailer -> back to the bank in the evening. I once made a calculation of whether it is possible to track all banknotes by serial number. There are only 20bn EU banknotes! Fits snuggly in a Postgres DB. With that, you could detect patterns: Does these guys always withdraws from this ATM and the money is cashed in that other neighborhood? Drug deal. A banknotes suddenly reappears after years? Black money stored in bulk, let’s see who withdrew it. Etc.
      - gosub100 3y ago
        I thought about this too several years back before privacy erosion really got noticed. If you scanned all sn's, a db could keep track of roughly where the cash was located. if you counterfeited, you'd have to use a valid sn, clone a bunch, or pick random ones. you could have a semi-accurate signal on whether to double-check a bill if it was registered in X location but appeared in Y, and if the treasury participated, it could flag a bill immediately as counterfeit. If a criminal cloned a large number of the same sn, once one is flagged as counterfeit you could catch a _lot_ more with no effort. while it would increase friction substantially for counterfeiters, the cost would be privacy.
adrr 3y ago
I hate ATM only branches. Can’t get new bills for the Xmas or Chinese new years.
lotsofpulp 3y ago
The only a reason a bank as a building even needs to exist is because cash is a thing. With electronic databases keeping track of funds and movement of funds, the banks’ purpose is reduced to being a lender, which requires much, much less infrastructure. If we had a constitutional right to an electronic funds account with an inalienable right to receive and send money, there would be zero need for banks. Their remaining purpose would be to be an underwriter or lender, at which point you would just describe them as an underwriter or lender instead of a bank.
- mixmastamyk 3y ago
  Don’t forget the glossy towers full of VPs downtown. How we know banking is so lucrative.
  - lotsofpulp 3y ago
    That is lending/investment banking that is lucrative, not the “banking” that most people associate with a typical bank with tellers. Technically, there is no reason why the Fed has to give the banks 5.25% interest, and then the bank gives the general public 20 basis points less. They could just give it directly to the public.
    - SllX 3y ago
      The extra layers of abstraction and buy-in from private banks is how we keep politics from completely dominating the value of money. The politics isn’t absent, but it is much more difficult to coerce the value of money in one direction or another without participation from the market.
      - lotsofpulp 3y ago
        I don’t know what that means. The value of money has moved in one direction, for a very, very long time. It is basically government policy, to target 2% reduction every year.

chiph 3y ago

My credit union did this several years ago - marketing them as "Cyber Branches". They're basically ATMs with video conferencing added. There are advantages, like increased employee & customer safety and lower costs. But I like to use uncirculated bills as gifts and now there is no one there to get them for me.

OfSanguineFire 3y ago

That is a pretty popular development, I have encountered banks where cash withdrawals are ATM-only for nearly a decade. What sucks, however, is if the bank imposes a fee after X number of ATM transactions (sometimes as little as two withdrawals). Then, with a maximum ATM withdrawal of 300€ or so, withdrawing a couple of thousand is going to incur a larger amount of fees than with the old cash from the teller system. Of course, with the world moving away from cash, fewer and fewer people will be affected by this.

corbezzoli 3y ago

I think that’s great, I don’t know what’s taking so long. ATM that dispense money have been around for decades, why isn’t the other way around the default by now? Using the ATM literally saves the bank money.

toast0 3y ago
ATMs have taken deposits since forever? Deposits without envelopes where the machine images checks and counts bills is very common in my experience, and it started long enough ago that I can't remember when it was. Sometime in 2010s, I think.
- ghaff 3y ago
  For that matter, with my (US) bank I can just take a picture of the check with the app on the smartphone. If you get a lot of checks, deposit one at a time methods can be a bit slow and tedious--but that's less and less common.
- corbezzoli 3y ago
  In the US maybe, in Europe I feel that they’re not the norm.
  - Symbiote 3y ago
    toast0 might be very young if 2010 is "forever" ago. I remember depositing banknotes in ATMs in Britain in the early 2000s. It was only a single ATM at the bank branch. You had to put the notes in an envelope and feed that into the machine. They would check the amount later in the day. At some point the machine would take the notes one at a time, and I've seen these in Britain and Denmark, but I deposit cash less than once a year in any case.
    - toast0 3y ago
      I was discussing two different time frames. Envelopeless deposits are circa 2010. Deposits in envelopes go back as far as I recognize ATMs (which is back when BofA was calling them 'versatellers', but I'd rather not date myself specifically) Here's a weird ebay auction of receipts from 1997 showing deposits: https://www.ebay.com/itm/334119399422 https://www.ebay.com/itm/334119399422 and a pretty good deal on long distance!

ghaff 3y ago

I'm always a bit surprised by just how much prime downtown real estate sizable bank branches take up. I can't imagine I'm that atypical in rarely using an ATM much less other local banking services. Presumably small businesses deal with banks much more frequently but banks still seem to take up a big physical footprint for the amount that most people use them.

seanmcdirmid 3y ago
Those businesses that still take cash often have to go to the bank once a day, especially if they don’t have a safe. So I can see the branches existing for that reason alone.
- ghaff 3y ago
  Yeah, I suspect that businesses are a big part of why banks still have the amount of retail footprint that they do.
  - eastbound 3y ago
    ATM -> retailer -> back to the bank in the evening. I once made a calculation of whether it is possible to track all banknotes by serial number. There are only 20bn EU banknotes! Fits snuggly in a Postgres DB. With that, you could detect patterns: Does these guys always withdraws from this ATM and the money is cashed in that other neighborhood? Drug deal. A banknotes suddenly reappears after years? Black money stored in bulk, let’s see who withdrew it. Etc.
    - gosub100 3y ago
      I thought about this too several years back before privacy erosion really got noticed. If you scanned all sn's, a db could keep track of roughly where the cash was located. if you counterfeited, you'd have to use a valid sn, clone a bunch, or pick random ones. you could have a semi-accurate signal on whether to double-check a bill if it was registered in X location but appeared in Y, and if the treasury participated, it could flag a bill immediately as counterfeit. If a criminal cloned a large number of the same sn, once one is flagged as counterfeit you could catch a _lot_ more with no effort. while it would increase friction substantially for counterfeiters, the cost would be privacy.

adrr 3y ago

I hate ATM only branches. Can’t get new bills for the Xmas or Chinese new years.

lotsofpulp 3y ago

The only a reason a bank as a building even needs to exist is because cash is a thing. With electronic databases keeping track of funds and movement of funds, the banks’ purpose is reduced to being a lender, which requires much, much less infrastructure. If we had a constitutional right to an electronic funds account with an inalienable right to receive and send money, there would be zero need for banks. Their remaining purpose would be to be an underwriter or lender, at which point you would just describe them as an underwriter or lender instead of a bank.

mixmastamyk 3y ago
Don’t forget the glossy towers full of VPs downtown. How we know banking is so lucrative.
- lotsofpulp 3y ago
  That is lending/investment banking that is lucrative, not the “banking” that most people associate with a typical bank with tellers. Technically, there is no reason why the Fed has to give the banks 5.25% interest, and then the bank gives the general public 20 basis points less. They could just give it directly to the public.
  - SllX 3y ago
    The extra layers of abstraction and buy-in from private banks is how we keep politics from completely dominating the value of money. The politics isn’t absent, but it is much more difficult to coerce the value of money in one direction or another without participation from the market.
    - lotsofpulp 3y ago
      I don’t know what that means. The value of money has moved in one direction, for a very, very long time. It is basically government policy, to target 2% reduction every year.