I do most of my banking at the ATM, and I noticed that the deposit envelopes the bank provides always have small holes near the bottom.
What are the holes for? Is there a scanner that looks for empty envelopes by checking if there’s anything blocking the holes (like a check), or are the holes just there so cheap people don’t steal deposit envelopes to use for their mailing needs?
This is just a WAG, but I’ve assumed they are there so air doesn’t get trapped in the envelopes while they’re being processed quickly by a machine. Imagine rollers top and bottom squeezing all the air into one end of the envelope, and popping it open.
Another WAG, but I always assumed that they were there so that the teller processing it could see at a glance that there was nothing left inside before discarding it.
Interstingly, not all ATM deposit envelopes have holes.
But yes, holey envelopes do discourage people from swiping them to use for mail, they do let the processing staff see that the envelope is empty, they do let the ATM itself see that there is indeed something in the envelope and not a fraudulent empty-envelope deposit with cash back, and they do let the envelopes pack down tighter in the machine’s hopper.
All in all, rather like inter-office envelopes.
My old bank teller gf told me the holes were there so the machine could tell if the envelope was empty. This was in the early days of atms.
I am not sure about ATM deposits, but I used to work for a utility company in the payment processing division. I believe most payments (utility, credit card, etc) are processed by machines and have been for at least 15 years. Where I worked, the first machine sorted the envelopes by thickness. It knew exactly how thick an envelope should be if it had one check and the remittance stub in it. I am guessing the sorting equipment for the ATM is similar to the ones I worked with, knowing to judge the thickness when it encountered a hole. Again, just my guess based on a similar process.
I posted the whole process once before here, if you want more information. I had no idea it was such an automated thing prior to working there.
I just deposited a cheque via an ATM and because of this thread I had a look at the deposit envelope before I put it into the slot. There weren’t any holes.
The last envelope I used had a cellophane window on the front.