In the beginning, most banks said “no problems”, but now there are more critical voices from the banks about the new upper limit for cash deposits.

For just under a month, private customers who want to deposit more than EUR 10,000 in cash at a bank have had to submit a certificate of origin for the money.

There are exceptions for business customers such as car dealers, where this happens regularly.

Christian Siedenbiedel

Editor in business.

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Sparkasse Leipzig, for example, reports that it has around ten such cases every day in which the “Payment Transactions” department receives the customer's data and has to write to them afterwards, stating that the customers have to provide proof of origin.

"It is not the case that all customers are happy about this additional effort - especially not if the motivation for this measure is questioned at the same time," said a spokesman.

The incoming evidence would be archived on a customer-specific basis.

Normally, proof of a sum is submitted.

"It will be thinner with the evidence if it was a 'wedding present'," said the spokesman.

For the Sparkasse it becomes "rather unattractive" in cases in which several documents are submitted for one amount.

Cash from the lockers

"The effort for the proof of origin for cash deposits is high," complains Michaela Thieß from Frankfurter Sparkasse.

However, your customers take up the topic “factually” - if there is a need for information, a flyer on this topic is made available.

The Federal Association of Volks- und Raiffeisenbanken is also critical.

The new regulation is "very complex" for banks and private customers, said a spokeswoman.

"In our view, the actual goal of money laundering is not effectively combated with the new regulation, because there is a risk that suspicious facts will be invalidated by pseudo-evidence."

“For example, when it comes to payment receipts, the question arises of how old they may be, nothing about this is given in the BaFin's instructions for interpretation and application,” said the spokeswoman.

In many cases of legal origin, there is also no proof of origin, for example if customers wanted to deposit an “emergency reserve in cash” held for a longer period of time at the bank - or if they were found by chance after an inheritance.

If there are no donation documents for gifts of money among relatives, a lot is at the discretion of the bank to clarify the matter precisely: "Another example: A customer takes cash from the safe and wants to deposit it into his account - and he either has no proof of origin for this Cash amount more or it is older. "

Demand for cash is increasing

In a first survey by the FAZ among banks immediately after the introduction of the new rule, the large institutions in particular, such as Deutsche Bank and Commerzbank, described the start as relatively unproblematic, even if there was of course a need for discussion among customers.

But also some savings banks had argued that there are seldom cases in which so much money is paid in cash at the counter, especially since exceptions are provided for commercial customers such as car dealers.  

Meanwhile, the Bundesbank reported that there was no evidence of a decline in demand for cash.

On the contrary: both for small bills that are used for everyday payments and for larger banknotes that are often used to store assets, the demand for cash has risen as the economy revives.

"Compared to the previous months, a clear revival in the demand for cash can be seen at the moment: For some months now, both the withdrawals and payments of banknotes at the Deutsche Bundesbank have increased, although this effect is more pronounced with regard to payments," said a spokesman .

The value of the cumulative net banknote issues of the Bundesbank (all issued minus deposited banknotes) rose from the end of April to the end of July by 21 billion to 853 billion euros.

In the same period last year, the increase was "noticeably lower" at 13 billion euros.