Today, the popularity of internet banking means even fewer transactions are done at the counter.
It will also mean that you will have less work to do because you will have fewer transactions.
"And now they have fewer transactions on which to make a profit, so they're just a little more desperate".
By holding inventories, both merchants and processors can make their purchases when it is most opportune and lower their transaction costs through fewer transactions.
He and real estate economists predicted that sales activity would most likely fall back into more seasonal patterns, with fewer transactions going into the summer.
"The general feeling is that things are not good because the summer season was much shorter than in the past and there were fewer transactions," he said.
The need for branches to hold big hoards of banknotes should diminish as mobile banking develops and people carry out fewer transactions in cash.
As the economy has become more sophisticated and simple cash is involved in fewer and fewer transactions, people must plan ahead far more than they once did.
It said 5 percentage points of that decline were due to fewer transactions and the rest was caused by customers spending less.
Mr. Hubert said he understood how some independent dealers, who handle far fewer transactions than gallery owners, could be swept up by a buyer's demands.
