Chase (formerly Bank One, which merged with JP Morgan Chase in 2004) has a large network of branch offices here in Chicago. When I moved into Bucktown about 6 years ago, there were no branches locally; but soon they filled in every corner (it seems) as the neighborhood gentrified. In River North there weren’t a lot of branches because there was limited residential traffic until recently when all of the condominiums were built over the last 5 years or so; now we have branches all over the place.
In a branch near my condo in River North (which oddly enough has a “fake” 2nd story that you can see as you ride on the Brown line of the “L” overhead) they added a coin counting machine that you see in the picture above. Unlike the coin counting machines in grocery stores, this coin counting machine doesn’t charge 5 to 10 cents for each dollar – you just feed in your coins and collect your cash from the bank teller (presumably in paper dollars, else why else visit?).
The coin counting machine was great; I lugged over plastic cups full of change and received over $200 in return. While I was waiting for my cash, I started up a conversation with the bank teller, who said that they were going to leave the coin counting machine only for a limited time but it was bringing in tons of foot traffic to the branch so they decided to make them permanent.
I found this to be interesting; only a few years ago banks were trying to get customers to use their online services instead of going to a retail branch and physically speaking with a teller or representative. This article from 1999 talks about banks that were charging $2 to speak with a bank employee for transactions that could either be done online or by phone.