Pfff. A friend of mine withdrew $200,000 in cash, and headed straight to the airport. I do not know what he told the bank (he obviously had to order it in advance), but he said the FBI wanted to know why.
Kinda reminds me of the time I was working as a software consultant on a large project for a bank. I guess I was technically a subcontractor since the project was being managed by a large software organization. One time when an interim payment was due, the project manager and I were dispatched to the bank’s head office to pick it up.
Since she was driving, I was tasked with going inside to a certain office and asking for an envelope that was supposed to be ready for pickup. It was handed over without question and off I went back to the car and we drove away. There was no cash involved, but the envelope contained a cheque for $6 million. On the way back we briefly talked about maybe changing our names to {name of software company} and eloping to South America, but opted instead to return to work and continue our humdrum lives. 
It’s both. In the UK at least, the checks are a legal requirement to ensure the money is from legit sources, on top of the checks for a loan, when it comes to buying a house.
I borrowed some money off my parents to buy a house outright- no mortgage or bank loan (cheap house). I still had to provide evidence of where the money came from, including 3 months of bank statements, showing which account the money from them had been transferred from.
I just remembered that in 2011 I took $7910 out of the bank (I had to look up the details). To my surprise, the credit union didn’t have enough cash to pay me out so I had to go back two days later. I don’t recall them questioning me at all.
Nope.
I used to get paid cash for music videos. Hell, I got paid with some of that cash when I WENT home. It was a special kind of treat when I was shooting music videos as a Steadicam Operator. They’d get me on a 12 hour rate + OT + Rental of my rig. Loved counting out those hundred dollar bills at 5am at wrap… But no. No payola. It went into the hands of the crew, the venue, the caterers.
I worked at a Big 4 bank in the largest retail store category they operated. Like a dozen or more teller windows including a couple dedicated to business customers, for reference. We could’ve handled a spontaneous $8k but when you start getting into the 5 figures it was a larger pain to collect the cash and might not be doable on short notice. $100k or more and we’d certainly have to tell you to come back, the truck came daily but wasn’t on call.
Ordering the day before, no problem, we could give you any amount of cash. Regular customers like the check cashing business who came in daily with a bag of checks and took out 6 figures in cash always requested the specific amount and denominations in advance and that was no problem, but a guy buying a car with cash might need to make alternative arrangements. Like split between multiple branches and make sure to mention the CTR is necessary.
This was a small store front Credit Union. They probably had $8k in stock but I maybe I would have wiped them out below a certain level that they liked to maintain.
All of these stories remind me of the time that my stepfather bought some furniture on credit from a German bank while he was stationed there with the U.S. Army back in the ‘90s. The unusual part was that after the loan was approved the bank gave him 4,000 Deutschmarks in cash to buy the furniture.
When I made the request detailed in my O.P., the first thing the teller said was, “I have to see if I have that much in $50s.” She did. I cleaned her OUT of fifties, but she was able to fulfill based on availability of that denomination.