Most of what a bank moves no longer moves at all. Checks clear as images, wires replace drafts, and signatures live on tablets. Yet every bank and credit union in the Washington region still has a courier, and the reason is the paper that remains: loan files that must be in a branch by closing, originals a regulator wants to see, signature cards, safe-deposit and estate documents, interoffice pouches between branches, and the responses an examiner expects on a date. This guide explains the bank courier runs we do across Washington DC, Maryland and Virginia — what moves, what does not, what the rules say about a bank's vendors, and how a branch network sets up a route that works.
The branch map
The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation's locations data listed 178 active offices of FDIC-insured institutions in the District of Columbia, 1,137 in Maryland and 1,853 in Virginia in October 2026, among more than 76,000 domestic offices nationwide as of mid-2025. Add the credit unions — the National Credit Union Administration's quarterly map review tracks membership state by state, and the region's are large — and the Washington area has several hundred branches within a courier's working day, from the headquarters towers downtown to the branch in a Montgomery County shopping centre. The banks industry page describes the accounts we run; the mortgage lending page covers the lenders whose files travel to and from those branches.
What does not travel with us: cash
A plain rule first. We do not carry cash or coin. Currency and coin move between the Federal Reserve and financial institutions through the Reserve Banks' cash services — the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond distributes currency and coin to institutions in the Fifth District from operations in Baltimore, Charlotte and Richmond — and between a bank and its branches by armored carrier under the bank's written security program. That program is itself a legal requirement: federal rules under the Bank Protection Act require each institution to adopt appropriate security procedures to discourage robberies, burglaries and larcenies and to administer a written security program for each banking office. A document courier is not part of that chain and should not pretend to be. A bank courier service that collects business customers' deposit bags is that kind of service, not ours. What we carry is everything around the money.
What does travel: the paper that remains
Check 21, the law that let banks process checks electronically by creating a substitute check from an image, took effect on October 28, 2004, and it removed most of the physical check courier business from the streets within a few years. What it did not remove is everything else.
Interoffice pouches, branch to branch. The daily loop is the backbone of bank courier work, the branch courier job many credit unions once staffed themselves: a driver visits every branch in a region at the same time each business day, collects the outbound pouch and drops the inbound one, and each stop is logged. Operations centres, lending offices and headquarters are stops on the same loop. The interoffice courier page and the corporate routes page explain how a route is built and priced; the multi-stop routes post explains why a loop costs less than the same stops booked one at a time.
Loan files and closing packages. Mortgage and commercial loan files move between branches, lending centres, title companies and attorneys, and on closing day they move fast — the real-estate closing deliveries post walks through the recording windows in each jurisdiction and the originals a lender insists on holding.
Signed originals and signature cards. Account documents, guarantees, resolutions, powers of attorney, the original note: whatever the bank's policy or its counterparty requires on paper, usually with a deadline.
Safe-deposit, trust and estate paperwork. Court orders, letters of administration, inventories and the keys and documents an estate attorney and a branch exchange when a box is opened.
Regulatory and legal responses. Examination requests, subpoenas and litigation holds often want paper on a date; the legal and court filing courier page covers filings and the document courier page the originals.
Supplies, marketing and equipment. Branch openings, promotions, replacement terminals, signage — the unglamorous runs that keep a network looking like one bank.
The customer who must sign today. A loan officer sends a package to a customer's office or home for a wet signature and gets it back the same afternoon; for a customer at a residence we use the private-recipient handling described in the delivering to private individuals post, so the customer's details stay with the dispatcher and the driver.
The rules a bank's vendor questionnaire comes from
Banks ask couriers more questions than law firms do, and the questions come from their regulators. In June 2023 the Federal Reserve, the FDIC and the Comptroller of the Currency issued joint guidance on third-party relationships. Its premise is that a banking organization's use of third parties does not diminish or remove its responsibility for the activity; the organization is expected to plan, conduct due diligence, contract, monitor and, when needed, terminate third-party relationships in a way that matches the risk each presents. A courier that carries customer loan files is a third party with physical access to customer information. For the institutions the Federal Trade Commission supervises rather than the banking agencies, the Safeguards Rule says the same in its own words — oversee service providers, require safeguards by contract, assess them periodically — and the confidential courier post covers that rule.
So the questionnaire is not bureaucracy; it is the bank documenting an assessment it is required to make. The answers a careful courier can give are specific. The package travels sealed and is described in our system by a reference, not by a customer. The driver sees the addresses, the contact at each end and the signature. Every handoff is logged, with time and name, and the record is available the same day — the chain of custody post describes it. Drivers are bonded and background-checked; the why bonded drivers matter post explains what the bond does and does not cover. We sign reasonable non-disclosure agreements and answer security questionnaires line by line; our handling policy is published on the confidential and medical deliveries page so a vendor-management team can read it before the first call. For a bank's federal-contract work, the government courier page covers controlled material.
Holidays and cut-offs
The Federal Reserve publishes the holidays its Banks observe; for 2026 they are New Year's Day, Martin Luther King Jr. Day, Presidents' Day, Memorial Day, Juneteenth, Independence Day, Labor Day, Columbus Day, Veterans Day, Thanksgiving and Christmas. Branch routes are usually paused on those days and run on the days the mail does not — the Friday after Thanksgiving, for example — and a route schedule written at the start of the year avoids the annual "is there a run today" call. Cut-off times are the other clock: a bank whose operations centre needs the pouches by two o'clock gets a morning loop timed backward from that, and a second afternoon loop for what the morning missed.
Setting up a branch route
A branch route starts with a list: every stop, its address and hours, the contact who hands over and receives the pouch, the time window that matters, and the days the route runs. From that we build a loop with a single driver — across the District, Montgomery and Prince George's counties and Northern Virginia on one run if that is the network — and a timeline that logs each stop. Changes are a message to dispatch; one-off runs between stops go on the same account. The business accounts page explains invoicing and reporting; a route is booked by calling dispatch or starting from the booking form. For how routes fit the rest of our work, see the complete guide to Washington DC courier service.
Sources used in this article. Branches: Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, BankFind Suite locations data (active offices by state, read October 2026) and FDIC press release on the 2025 Summary of Deposits survey; National Credit Union Administration, Quarterly U.S. Map Review, fourth quarter 2025. Cash services: Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond, Cash Services page. Security programs: 12 CFR Part 326 (Minimum Security Devices and Procedures). Checks: Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, Check 21 frequently asked questions. Third-party risk: Interagency Guidance on Third-Party Relationships: Risk Management, Federal Register, June 9, 2023 (OCC Bulletin 2023-17; Federal Reserve SR 23-4). Safeguards: 16 CFR Part 314. Holidays: Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, "Holidays Observed — K.8." Figures are quoted as published by those sources; this article is general information, not legal or compliance advice.