Originally Posted by
cordelli
It's just much easier for the bank to track if all the trays are the same. There's way too many things that can go wrong if you load each tray with a different value bill. Some banks are obviously willing to deal with those issues, but for the most part, banks just order "ATM quality" 20's and that's that.
When I worked for a Central California S&L in the mid 1980s, our IBM ATMs held two cash "magazines". We loaded $20s in the first one and $5s into the second one - at first the fives were being taken much more quickly than the $20s (people taking a five to pay for lunch, for instance, back when pauing that amount was much easier to do).
So we re-programmed them to require a $20 minimum withdrawl, at which time the distribution of the currency evened out (if someone wanted $50, the machine would offer the option of two $20s and two $5s, or one $20 and six $5s - it was actually fairly slick for 1985)
I wonder - how many cash magazines (or cartridges or trays) do modern day ATMs have?
Also, did anyone ever use an ATM that dispensed coins? I remember using one at the central "X" position of the midfield terminal at PIT - it was just after the new terminal opened , and I remember withdrawing something like $29.99, just to see how the machine handled it. I haven't seen another coin-dispensing machine since.