Night safe gone? How shops and restaurants secure their takings when the bank branch closes
For decades, the night safe at the business's own bank was the usual way to get the day's takings off the premises after closing. It is vanishing together with the branches. This article sets out what a night safe does, why their number keeps falling, and how hospitality and retail businesses can bridge the gap within their own premises.
How a night safe works
A night safe is a facility offered by banks and savings banks that permits cash lodgements outside counter hours. Registered customers are given a key to the drop flap in the branch's external wall. What goes in is a cash pouch (known in German as a "Geldbombe"), a lockable container holding the cash and the lodgement slip. A mechanism takes in the full pouch and hands back an empty one; the full pouch drops into a magazine that only bank staff can open. For the customer, then, the night safe is not a safe at all but a drop point: nothing can be retrieved from it.
It is used chiefly by the hospitality and retail trades, so that the day's takings do not sit in the shop overnight. Yet the risk simply moves elsewhere: between the shop and the bank, the money is unprotected. For that reason banks monitor their night safes with video and, in some cases, offer drive-through counters.
Source: Wikipedia, article "Nachttresor" (accessed 30 September 2026).
Why night safes are becoming scarce
A night safe belongs to a branch. And branches are being shut. According to the bank office statistics of the Deutsche Bundesbank, Germany's central bank, there were 16,799 domestic branches in Germany at the end of 2025. At the end of 2022 the figure was still 20,446. Over three years, 3,647 branches have therefore gone, nearly one in five.
| Year end | Total branches | Savings banks | Credit cooperatives |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2022 | 20,446 | 7,326 | 6,731 |
| 2023 | 19,501 | 6,965 | 6,430 |
| 2024 | 17,870 | 6,788 | 6,250 |
| 2025 | 16,799 | 6,671 | 6,091 |
Source: Deutsche Bundesbank, bank office statistics 2025, figures as at 31 December 2025.
The savings banks (Sparkassen) and the Volksbanken and Raiffeisenbanken cooperative banks in particular, which provide the night safes across the regions, between them closed 276 branches in 2025 alone. Where a branch does remain, the night safe is frequently replaced by lodgement machines that count the notes and credit them at once. That is cheaper for the bank, but for the business it is not the same thing: the machine generally stands in a foyer with access control, takes neither coin rolls nor lodgement slips, and whoever uses it at eleven o'clock at night with the day's turnover is standing with their back to the street.
The gap: where is the cash kept between closing time and the bank?
Once the night safe is gone, the cash stays on the premises until somebody drives to the bank. For a café closed two days a week, that may be four days' takings. Without protection they sit in the till drawer, in the office or in the owner's cash bag. This is precisely the case a drop safe is designed for: on the premises, it performs the function the night safe used to perform at the bank.
The principle is identical. After cashing up or at shift change, staff drop the money in without opening the safe. Only a person holding the key or the code can take it out, usually the owner or the manager. An anti-fishing device ensures that notes once dropped in cannot be fished back out through the slot.
Which drop safe takes the place of the night safe?
Three questions decide the right model:
1. What goes in? For notes and flat pouches, a slot of 20 × 150 mm is enough. For cash bags, coin rolls, card receipts and till inserts, a drop flap is needed, for instance 70 × 225 mm.
2. How much builds up? The safe must hold the takings until the next bank run. 21 litres suffice for a small shop with a daily bank run, 35 litres for a restaurant with several shifts and weekend trade.
3. Who may open it? A key lock is the simplest answer. A PIN code lock does away with key management and with changing the lock if a key is lost. Businesses that run their cash procedures on the two-person principle opt for two locks, so that only two authorised people can open the safe together.
Two tried-and-tested models for the till area:
- Drop safe with slot, key lock: 300 × 280 × 260 mm, 21.84 litres, slot 20 × 150 mm, 3 mm walls and 6 mm door of hardened steel, 13.4 kg, wall and floor anchoring, fixing material included.
- Drop safe with drop flap for the hospitality trade: 450 × 280 × 300 mm, 35 litres, flap 70 × 225 mm, 3 mm walls and 6 mm door, 23 kg, wall and floor anchoring.
Both are rated security level A under the German standard VDMA 24992 and are insurable for up to around 1,500 euros. All models with slot or flap, key or code are listed in the overview of drop safes.
Three rules for making the replacement work
- Anchor the safe. A drop safe of 13 or 23 kg can be carried off unless it is anchored. Wall or floor anchoring is part of fitting it, and the fixing material is included.
- Regular bank runs. The safe collects the cash; it does not replace the trip to the bank. Two fixed bank runs a week, at varying times, keep the amount held in the safe low.
- Look into the opening delay. Anyone who regularly keeps larger sums overnight should know the requirements of DGUV Regulation 25 (DGUV Vorschrift 25, a rule of the German statutory accident insurance). What the opening delay does is explained in our article Drop safes and DGUV Regulation 25.
Summary
The bank's night safe was convenient because the money left the premises on the same evening. With 3,647 branches closed since 2022, that option is gone for many businesses. A drop safe in the till area takes over the job: dropping in without opening, removal by authorised people only, cash kept secure until the next bank run. We are happy to help you choose the right model.
