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Danish Bank Workers Celebrate First Full Year Without Robberies (theguardian.com) 57

Denmark has recorded its first year without bank robberies, as the use of cash has dwindled in recent years, the country's finance workers' union said. From a report: The increasingly cashless society had led banks to reduce their cash services, the union said on Monday, leaving little potential loot for robbers. "It's nothing short of amazing. Because every time it happens, it's an extreme strain on the employees involved," said Steen Lund Olsen, the vice-president of the union, Finansforbundet. "It's something you can't even begin to understand the emotional impact of if you haven't experienced it yourself," he added. The union said there had been 221 bank robberies in 2000, a number that slowly decreased to less than 10 a year since 2017.
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Danish Bank Workers Celebrate First Full Year Without Robberies

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  • by Waffle Iron ( 339739 ) on Wednesday January 04, 2023 @02:50PM (#63179960)

    Looks like the legacy bank robbing industry has been displaced by online tech firms like FTX.

    • by ls671 ( 1122017 )

      Indeed, who needs to rob a bank when you can hijack bitcoins from anybody, even from a "key bitcoin developer" see here:
      https://slashdot.org/story/23/... [slashdot.org]

    • Or hacker gangs, money has never been easier to steal thanks to crypto.
    • Yay, no more cash. (Score:2, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Yay, no more bank robberies.

      Yay, no more bankruns possible. All money is now beholden to someone else. No reserve, no nothing.

      Yay, no more privacy. All transactions have a name attached. And with increasing "KYC/AML" measures, that much more scrutiny to all bank transactions.

      Yay, no more cheques. All transfers have to be initiated electronically. Requiring electricity and network, or no money will move.

      Yay, come next crisis, the government can just force the entire population to take a haircut, as the l

      • This is a prime example of the market at work. People decided they liked debit card transactions better than cash. Why do you hate the free market?

    • FTX is basically COVID-era work-from-home bank robbery.
    • Naah, it's just because all of the Olsenbanden members have since died.
  • In the U.S., if that ever happened, the response would be an immediate and swift, "Challenge accepted!" And we'd have a record breaking number of bank robberies during that year.

    I'm really glad that there's at least one pretty chill country compared to the U.S.

  • Nothing to rob (Score:5, Informative)

    by amorsen ( 7485 ) <benny+slashdot@amorsen.dk> on Wednesday January 04, 2023 @03:01PM (#63179994)

    Banks don't have cash in Denmark, so there is nothing to rob.

    If you ask for cash, you are directed to the ATM.

    • Its true? If so, nice info!
      • Its true?

        Pretty much.

        The same's true here in Spain. You only go inside a bank if you need something special. The ATMs can do almost everything and the cashier will likely take you to one and show you how to use it if you play the "I don't know how" card.

        • Here in Brazil still there's safe in banks
        • In my case (USA), the "something special" leading me to ask a cashier for help has often ended up being "Please help me deposit my paycheck while the ATM is displaying an 'out of service' sign. No, my employer doesn't offer direct deposit; I've asked."

          • You still use "checks" to get paid?

            • by tepples ( 727027 )

              Yes. It appears direct deposit is available only if an employer has at least a minimum number of employees in a given state. I currently work remotely and am the only employee of my current employer in my state (that I'm aware of).

          • by amorsen ( 7485 )

            The Danish check system was dismantled a while ago. I have never had a checkbook or received a paycheck.

        • by mjwx ( 966435 )

          Its true?

          Pretty much.

          The same's true here in Spain. You only go inside a bank if you need something special. The ATMs can do almost everything and the cashier will likely take you to one and show you how to use it if you play the "I don't know how" card.

          Been the case in Australia for years. I'd wager it is the same in most developed nations.

          If you need to get a volume of cash out from a bank in Australia, you need to pre-order it as they need to get it special delivered from a depository (presumably the mint in Australia). With modern banking systems allowing instantaneous transfers as they do in the UK, the need for large volumes of cash (I.E. $10K to buy a 2nd hand car) has diminished significantly. That being said, when I last lived in Australia betw

    • I really hope this doesn't come to the US. I know Swish and the like are great systems, but I like cash. It gives me a tiny sense of control over what I do with my money.

      • I really hope this doesn't come to the US. I know Swish and the like are great systems, but I like cash. It gives me a tiny sense of control over what I do with my money.

        You can get cash from ATMs. No need to go inside a bank.

        • Only up to $500/1,000 depending on the bank. Sometimes I need to get more and spreading it out over a few days or different banks is stupid.

      • You don't think the store surveillance cameras have the resolution to log the bill serial numbers as the clerk counts them?

    • This is how it's becoming in the US too. Where I bank, if you need more cash than what the ATM will give you, you basically ask someone working at the branch to temporarily increase the limit. They don't have old-style tellers with immediate access to cash.

      Conversely, the ATM in the lobby must then have substantial cash reserves (it'll happily dispense stacks of $100 bills). If a criminal was resourceful enough they could potentially break into the ATM... But even that is certainly better for the employees

      • If a criminal was resourceful enough they could potentially break into the ATM...

        It ain't easy... and they'll likely explode in a cloud of purple ink and smart water if you try to use force on them.

      • by tsqr ( 808554 )

        It doesn't take much resourcefulness to force a bank customer at gunpoint to make a cash withdrawal from an ATM after forcing a bank employee at gunpoint to increase the withdrawl limit.

        • In practice that would mean taking everyone in the bank hostage for some length of time. This is somewhat... different from the typical scenario where a guy walks up, hands a note to the teller demanding money, and then runs off. Unless you're Dr. Octopus, you're not going to do it alone, and the chances are they'd just turn off the ATM while you're interviewing the customers to find out who's got the most money in their account and the swat team is on its way.

    • And it is fucking insane. It also mean you can't do currency exchanges in your bank, or old people can't do any banking.

      • And it is fucking insane. It also mean you can't do currency exchanges in your bank, or old people can't do any banking.

        I find it crazy that there's an expectation to do currency exchange in a bank in the first place. This has always been an ancillary service, not a core business.

        Old people being unable to do banking is a bigger issue. I still remember my grandma who always kept a saving book for me since I was born, and since she moved in a home she said she's stopping this and transferred it to me. I took the book into the bank and the lady at the counter didn't have a clue what to do with it, she had to get her (old) supe

      • by amorsen ( 7485 )

        You can order foreign currency. A robber could get lucky that someone has done that and not yet collected it. Unless you order it yourself, but then it is a bit stupid to rob your own money...

        You can also order coins (for change), so you might have a bit more luck as a robber with those.

      • Currency exchange in a lot of western countries is unneeded as you can just used Credit/Debit countries

    • You still have ATM in Denmark?

  • the directors etc?
  • The government hates competition.
  • Even in the United States, I suspect far more money is lost due to fraud, identity theft, credit-card scams, etc. than is lost in actual physical bank robberies.

  • To greener pastures. Robbing a bank is quite dumb these days. The automatic telling systems mean that cashiers don't have cash in some drawers anymore but that they have to complete a rather complicated process for withdrawal and after they're done, the automatic system pushes up a few notes through a slit directly from the safe. One such action takes a few minutes and can only produce a few 100 to maybe a couple 1000 bucks. By the time you have a relevant amount of cash in your hands, the police is already

  • I think we have to re-work a definition of bank rubbery a little. A few weeks ago the largest danish bank ended up paying one of the biggest settlements ever in US. So this time around the bank rubbed or at least helped rub a few tax collecting authorities. https://www.thelocal.dk/202212... [thelocal.dk]
  • They have closed so many physical locations, I am not sure which physical location i should visit now. Of course I can look it up on their website but I have no reason to.
    My latest mortgage load were handled over the phone and signing documents were done digitally,
    ATMs can spit out DKK / EUR and a few even USD.
    My bamk "advisor"(=assigned sales person) changes every half year. I assume these days their computers does all the evaluation.
    Before they closed the last two physical locations of my back, th

  • They were never good at bank robbery anyway. If you have seen "Olsen gang" then you know what I mean.
  • Granted, it was 20 years ago in the U.S., it was a pretty bad experience. Shots fired, no one was hurt, and it was probably from an insider coordinating it. Large amount of money on-hand, the correct vault of three compromised and maximum amount of money stolen. The bank was right on the border between two cities in Phoenix and three different police departments could have responded, which lead to THREE departments wrangling over it - Peoria, Phoenix, and Glendale. Meanwhile, the crooks called in a fake

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