A bank teller (North American English) or a bank clerk (British English, Australian English and New Zealand English) (often abbreviated to simply teller or clerk) is an employee of a bank whose responsibilities include the handling of customer cash and negotiable instruments. In some places, this employee is known as a cashier or customer representative.
Responsibilities and duties of the bank teller
Being front-line staff they are most likely to detect and stop fraudulent transactions in order to prevent losses at a bank (
counterfeit currency and cheques,
identity theft,
, etc.). The position also requires tellers to be friendly and interact with the customers, providing them with information about customers' accounts and bank services. Tellers typically work from a station, usually located on a teller line. Most stations have a
teller system, which includes cash drawers, receipt validator/printers, proof work sorters, and paperwork used for completing bank transactions. These transactions include:
-
Cheque cashing, Deposit account, transfers,
-
Savings deposits, withdrawals
-
Issuing negotiable items (cashier's checks, traveler's cheques, , federal draft issuances, etc.)
-
Payment collecting
-
Promotion of the financial institution's products (, mortgage loan, etc.)
-
Facilitating applications for retail credit products (short-term financing, , etc.)
-
Business referrals (trust company, insurance, lending, etc.)
-
Cash advances
-
Savings bond redemption
-
Resolving customer issues
-
Balancing the vault, cash drawers, ATMs, and TAUs
-
Batching and Processing Proof Work (on-us/not-on-us checks, payment coupons, counter slips, etc.)
-
May include ordering products for the customer (cheques, deposit slips, etc.)
Prevalence and history
In the United States, tellers held approximately 608,000 jobs in 2006. Of these, approximately 25% were classified as part-time. Median annual earnings as of May 2006 were $22,140.
.
The number of tellers in the United States increased from approximately 300,000 in 1970 to approximately 600,000 in 2010. A contributing factor in the period of increase may have been the introduction of automated teller machines due to the impact of induced demand: ATMs allow a branch to operate with fewer tellers, making it more economical for banks to open more branches, necessitating more tellers to staff those additional branches. In the later 2010s and the 2020s, automation and online banking (as anticipated
Public figures who were former bank tellers
Many well-known personalities have worked as bank tellers including:
See also
-
Automated teller machine (ATM)
-
Front office (finance)
-
Cashier
