Banks and Credit Unions using large Diebold, Wincor or NCR brand ATMs can have as many as 4 cash cassettes, each capable of holding over 2,000 notes. In theory, if a single bank ATM was loaded with only $100 bills it could hold more than $800,000 in cash! That’s a lot of cash inside just one ATM but the reality of what is loaded is quite different.
Banks and credit unions normally load a variety of denominations ranging from $5s and $10s to the most common $20 dollar note. They also do not load their ATMs to maximum capacity and instead base the cash load volume on the historical demand for each specific ATM location.
Privately owned, white label ATMs like Hyosung ATM, Triton ATM and Genmega ATM are available in a variety cash dispenser configurations. Some have 2 or 3 cassettes with each holding either 1,000 or 2,000 notes but the vast majority have just 1 cash cassette that holds a maximum of 1,000 bills. Again, the most common denomination loaded into any ATM in Canada is a $20 bill and so the maximum capacity of this, the most common type of machine is $20,000.
Like the banks, business owners that own and load their own ATM only stock their machine with enough cash to satisfy the withdrawal demand until the date they plan to reload again. Because most ATMs are loaded by the staff right at the business location of the ATM, they are often loaded with just enough cash for one day. The average ATM located at a gas station, a convenience store, etc. is loaded with less than $5,000.
