Something strange at our bank: from Oct 1st they will start charging a 5 euro fee for every 200 or 500 euro bill you deposit (both private and business clients), citing they have to trace the origin of every single one of them and that is costly.

This seems weird to me, because a) they're subtly implying that only criminals use large denominations, b) they're only required by law to notify authorities of 'unusual' transactions upwards of either 10k or 25k, and c) how on earth are they going to track the origin of EVERY single large denomination bill they receive? Something doesn't quite add up here.

So that had me thinking that maybe they are starting to run out of money and are trying to trigger people in to depositing their cash in order to avoid these ridiculous fees. Maybe I've got my conspiracy glasses on, but it pings me as very strange.

By the way: d) that same bank has been fined for money laundering in the past (which bank hasn't, though?). Several times.