I’m writing a story about a bank heist and was wondering if there are any estimates / guidelines / semi-reasonable sounding guesses as to how much cash a bank would have on hand.
In just the teller drawers?
If you cleaned out the vault?
I guess the ATM cash would be in the vault as well, awaiting delivery to said ATMs?
I’m guessing this would depend on population and customer base, so lets say: Serving a town / county population of 15k/35k, main branch which services six ATMs.
And lets say the setting is current, give or take 5 years.
Disclaimer: no I am not going to rob a bank, its a story…really.
Also, if I submit said story to a publisher and get the amounts of cash grossly wrong, would that affect the possible acceptance of the story, or if all else was good, would the publisher just request a revision to bring it in line with reality.
It’s been 20 years since I worked in a bank, so both my figures and memory may be outdated.
Tellers had a $2000 max in their drawers. If we exceeded that then we had to make a transfer to the vault. The vault probably had $20-30,000. But I worked in small branches, and we didn’t carry very much. There was one time when a customer wanted $10,000 to go to the track, and we had to scramble to get that much together for him.
I’m surprised that it is that low. I figured a lot of folks just cashed their paycheck – maybe not as much now, but I’ve worked with guys in the past who routinely just cashed their check on payday (back when it was normal to get a live check).
In our bank, after we get our shipment for the week, there is 150,000 in the vault and 30,000 in the ATM, as well as about 10,000 in each of the teller’s (3 tellers) drawers.
When I worked in a bank, it would depend n the day - higher amounts were issued to the tellers on paydays, pension days etc. For withdrawals over a certain amount (IIRC, a couple of grand, but that was back in the 80’s), we required prior notice so we could adjust our delivery to cover the extra amount.
You could make either of those a bit of a plot point.
I’d target the truck making deliveries to several banks if I were [del]doing[/del] writing about this.
My experience, about 5 years ago in a very large branch (12 +/- teller windows, lotsa bankers). It was the largest category classified by the bank.
$10,000 max, MAX in drawer. $2000 allowed in top, $8000 in bottom. We were allowed to hold another $40,000 locked in a drawer in the vault, so $50,000 TOTAL. That last part was for if we get a large deposit. The policies changed halfway through so I believe they may force new tellers to have lower limits.
There was a teller cash machine but it was very large and would’ve taken an expert to crack. It carried perhaps high tens of thousands. The vault varied and would’ve have more if someone requested money in advance, like a business who deals in cash. It wasn’t millions and millions of dollars on any given day, maybe closer to $1m.
Well, it’s gonna depend - is this an in-and-out “put the money in a paper bag” robbery of one teller, or a full-blown hit needing fifty times more planning that hits the vault as well?
The ATM might be the best target - in fact the robbery of a delivery truck for an ATM was recently in the news here.
I’m surprised at the $10k figure too. I may go to the bank once a month, if that, and it won’t be for cash. Everything is done through my debit card or online. These days I have to remember to ask the supermarket cashier for cash with my groceries and it’s usally just the kid’s pocket money. Maybe I’m just an extreme proponent of the cashless society.
I said max, max MAX. Meaning that if you had $10,001, you immediately had to rush to the back and lock a portion up. Usually when I opened I had ~$1k in the top drawer, and a bunch of coins/rolls in the middle drawer (harder to get rid of).
Lots of ways to get cash: people turning in coins, older people who don’t trust debit/credit, cash businesses, immigrants, etc.
You could reasonably explain any amount you wanted to - depending on the bank and its business climate and the teller and their tenure.
My girlfriend worked for years at a bank. One of the busier ones in her state at the time would authorize $30k per teller (divided into, say 5k up top in loose cash and the rest locked below in straps) and half a million in the vault in the back.
I worked at a bank where you were allowed the max of $2k in total at your window (of course depending on tenure, others had up to 10k) and 30-50k in the vault. And this is all fluid, busier times of the year required more.
So in short, anything you want to do is fine. And it will not at all impact your chances of publishing the story. 99% of people don’t know what happens behind the teller line.
Some great answers here, thanks for all the input so far.
Let me expand the scope a little bit and ask of those who didn’t already answer this; how much might be in the vault if that was the robber’s main objective?
I was surprised at how many customers thought that they had their own special mini vault in the back that held just their own cash. A lot would expect to withdraw those $2 bills that they deposited the week before.