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> Withdrawing is always just transferring to another bank - even if that bank is the central bank.

No. You can withdraw cash. But you are right, that the common case is a transfer.

> Banks settle with each other by the target bank taking over the deposit in the source bank.

That's one way they can settle. But at the end of the day (or whatever the relevant period is), they send each other the net difference in the underlying base money. These days, that's deposits at the central bank.

> That is how correspondent banking has worked for at least four hundred years.

Correspondent banking being important is mostly an American thing (and perhaps a 18th and 19th century English, but not Scottish, thing, too.)

> There is never any "money" in a vault. There might be some receipts for money, but that's about it.

These days, the 'vault' is (mostly) an account at the central bank.




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