Two men reading

Around-the-clock security

“Now you can bank your money around-the-clock,” advertisement for new Night Depository Service at Regina main branch, 1954.

BMO has a long history of providing customers with products and services embodying our Purpose to Boldly Grow the Good in business and life. In September 1954, Bank of Montreal introduced an innovative new service: Night Deposit Service. The service gave customers a safe place to leave their cash or other forms of payment overnight, past regular banking hours, and on holidays. Customers were provided with a locked wallet in which to place their funds and a key to the external opening of a safe located on the exterior of the branch. The wallet would be placed in the safe and retrieved the next banking day by bank personnel. The customer then had the option of depositing the funds in their account or retrieving them.

Photograph of Mayor Armand Ménard making the first night deposit at the Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu branch, as Stanislas Tremblay (Chief of Police) and Gaspard Fortier (branch manager) look on, 1955.

Night Deposit Services were first introduced at the Regina main branch, the first of its kind in Western Canada, with the promise of introducing the service from coast-to-coast. The depositories later became in such popular demand that, in November 1955, the Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu branch announced they too would be offering Night Deposit Services, quickly expanding the number of branches that began to offer this service.

Today, Night Depository Service is a normal type of banking transaction, part of a long history of providing convenient products and services for our customers.