Taking Home the Key to the Bank

Question:

Several employees are carrying "take home" bank keys on their personal key rings - along with house and car keys. I would like to stop this practice to keep the keys separate and not in use when out of the bank. I cannot find any reference material on this. What do you think of stopping this practice?

Answer:

Taking institution keys home is a common practice. The institution rarely requires employees to turn in their keys when they leave on vacation or an "enforced leave". So -- why are you still using an outdated technology to secure your buildings?

Electronic access devices (swipe cards or proximity cards) have been commercially available for more than 50 years -- and this technology was developed to overcome the inherent limitations of metal keys and mechanical locksets. If you replace your existing mechanical locksets with electronic access devices, you can control access at any time. Employees may continue to take keys home -- but you can deactivate them during non-business hours.

For example, you can make the card active only from 8:00 AM through 5:00 PM. You can deactivate the card from February 22-27, 2004. You can restrict access to the vault, human resources or security.

First published on BankersOnline.com 7/17/06