“There’s not a whole lot of income in it,” McGuinn said. Prices vary by size, location and bank, with an average annual cost of $60 per box, researcher ValuePenguin has found. Since then, lenders have built millions of safe deposit boxes around the country. It wasn’t until the 1930s that the US Supreme Court passed a law allowing banks to offer the service, according to the Arkansas Law Review.

Jenks built a fire-proof building at the corner of Broadway and Liberty Street in New York’s financial district, outfitted with armed guards, according to an 1865 New York Times article. The business traces its roots more than 150 years back, when Francis Jenks started a standalone safe deposit box business, McGuinn said. “If you calculate building a vault, putting a security system on it, there’s $10,000 worth of boxes, you have to train your people on it.

“It’s the most expensive square footage you can put in a new branch,” David McGuinn, president of Safe Deposit Specialists, said in an interview. Still, the service caters to lenders’ longest-tenured and wealthiest account holders, with the average box holder making an income 14% higher than the national average, and most at least 50 years old. Historically, lenders have associated safe deposit boxes with losses, since they have to dedicate real estate and staff to running the business, according to the consultancy Safe Deposit Specialists.

Bank safe deposit box near austin