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Well when I was at BAC the machine they used was for US only and the tellers had to refer to a foreign currency book to verify anything else. Now BAC does have a main vault here in tampa for the Southeast and I am sure they probably have electronic means in the vault. That place is like Fort Know. The workers wear zipped jumpsuits. 5/3 also uses only US machines. I left there in july of last year and they had no Talaris machines. Most of the other banks in the Tampa Bay area use Bank of Americas vault as well. So I imagine everything is verified in the main vault. When a deposit is done at a bank it is kind of treated like a forign check. Most foreign checks with the exception of some canadian checks are sent off to collections that can take 6-8 weeks. So if you have say 500 in your account and deposit a foreign check for 2000 those funds might take awhile to be available. Now currency is different, but the funds won't be available immediately. None of the banks are equipped to verify foreign currency electronically, only the main vaults. So you will still have a wait time. And you are right no bank is going to exchange currency unless you have an account. 5/3 I think does for non customers but only a limited amount I think no more than 1000 US again I can verify that with my wife. I can call a friend at BAC and dig into the machines they use in the main vault.