What always irritated me was the hold on CASH deposits.

Any deposit, cash or cheque, was held for about ten days when I first had my account. A year or so down the line, it was reduced to a week, but it's cash FFS.

It took a while before they recognised that being unable to access cash was a disincentive to put it in the bank when I could access it in my possession.

A mixture of what they have to do, what they have discretion on and the bank's policy.

It is true that the more you need access to uncleared funds, the less likely you are to be given it / the richer you are the more likely you are to be given access that you don't really need.

It's all about risk and the bank/tellers will take whatever steps they feel are necessary to protect the funds they are entrusted with. You would be surprised how much tellers know about customers, cheques, companies - especially local branches where tellers have been there many years. They know which cheques they can trust. So a cheque they have no knowledge of is more likely to be held than say one from a company they have known as trusted for years.

ABM or teller? ABM cash deposits are always held until they are checked by a human and the amounts reconciled with the stated deposited amounts.

I have honestly never heard of cash being held if deposited with a teller - which bank? Remind me to not bank with them.

Yes, but I imagine the machine is emptied and checked every 24 hours.

But even if deposited late on a Friday and not opened and checked until Monday, that's still not a good reason to hold for a further 4 days or a full week more as it was at first.

I suspect it wasn't 'the bank' so much as 'this province' and its outdated practices.

Maybe that is the idea. Cash is very expensive for a bank to deal with.

The bank has to explain its holds policy to you if you ask them to. They will have documentation explaining it.

Yes, the machines are emptied and checked as you say - and not weeks apart.

But if you hand cash over the counter, those specific bills aren't noted as "yours". So when they cash up at the end of the day, all cash is bundled up together. Also, the bills you handed in can easily not even stay in the bank - the same cash handed in is handed out to other customers. Cheques are traceable back to you. So I still don't get how they could hold cash deposits made over the counter.

I'm sadly still intrigued by this. Banks' ABM cash policies, picked at random:

President's Choice: "Canadian dollar bank machine deposits will post to your account immediately but funds available are subject to a hold of up to 5 business days or your hold period, as outlined in your product letter."

Scotiabank: "Deposits may be placed on hold for up to 4 business days."

RBC is a bit vague "Before releasing the entire amount, we need to process ATM deposit envelopes and verify the contents."

But all relate to ABMs. I can't find any mention of over the counter holds on cash.

I'd be grilling my bank as to their policy on teller cash deposits.

RBC seems to have no actual across the board policy, and seem to do more of a case by case basis for each customer.

For example before my GF and I merged our accounts, I had a 250 release on ATM deposits, anything over that was released the next business day.

But my GF only has 100 release on ATM deposits + 3 business day hold.

Even asking the teller they don't have a straight answer, you get a vague depends on the customer, so not even sure the tellers know.

I wish Canadian banks would switch to modern ATM's like some US banks have, when I banked with Bank of America their ATM's counted, sorted and cleared cash right away, no envelope needed, just put the cash into the slot, machine counted and sorted it, and presto into your account.

Never had cash held at the teller though, seems odd they would hold cash when deposited in person.

The tellers won't know how the specific amount was arrived at, only that it is at least $100 and can be more depending on your banking history - it is decided behind the scenes.

The tellers are just the poor souls who have to attempt to explain it a zillion times.

If you want to, you could always discuss it with the supervisor or manager. That's the beauty of discretionary policies.

I once needed to deposit a draft just picked up from another bank. They telephoned the bank who confirmed it was indeed genuine and guaranteed and that I had just collected it yet they still wanted to hold it - just in case I had forged it. The manger over-ruled the teller and it went in without a hold. Good thing I hadn't got the genuine draft in my pocket and a forgery handed in...