Vault Operations

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Question:

If funds transferred from the vault for use during the day as well as funds remitted by the tellers are kept in a safe outside the main vault, is it a good practice for the supervisor to have sole custody of both keys of the safe? Secondly, if tellers have loose notes in their mallets at the end of the day (representing the float in their tills) which are not double counted by the supervisor, is it good practice for a bank to keep a duplicate of the key to the mallet which can be used in case of an absence of one of the tellers? Would this entail a risk of accountability in case of a cash shortage when the bank opens the teller's mallet in his or her absence?

Answer:

One person having both keys to any secured area defeats the purpose of having two keys or dual control. I would not recommend that the teller leave with the keys and leave the bank with no way to access the "mallet" (I am not familiar with the term, but get the idea) when this may be needed to balance or for a replacement teller to work. If the bank does have any duplicate keys, these should be under dual control. That assures the teller that no one person could have accessed their area.

First published on BankersOnline.com 12/08/08