With PFD payouts near, Alaska needs cash - lots of it. Here's how it gets here.

In the age of electronic transactions, it would be easy to spend every cent of this year's $1,022 Permanent Fund dividend without converting it to cash.

But enough Alaskans still use paper currency that each fall, without fail, banks here ratchet up their orders for cash from the Federal Reserve, which is responsible for storing currency and distributing it to banks.

Different states have different quirks to their currency flows. Hawaii, for example, rarely orders cash because tourists bring it into the economy.

Alaska has the dividend.  

"One of the things our people in Seattle running our cash facility are very attuned to is that every year there's going to be this big order," said John Williams, president and CEO of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco.

Alaskans are all about the Benjamins. In preparation for PFD season last year, banks' demand for $100 bills spiked to 60 percent of all paper currency ordered in September 2015, according to data from the Federal Reserve.

Orders for hundreds outpaced all other denominations every month last year except May. That month, Alaska banks requested more twenties, typically the second most-ordered bill.

Alaskans also like to get their hands on some Grants. Fifties were the third most-ordered greenback in 2015.

Armored-carrier personnel stash the bills in zip-tied cloth bags and drive it from the central bank's super-secure cash facility in Renton, Washington, to Seattle-Tacoma International Airport, where it is loaded into the cargo holds of planes bound north.

The 2-pound bundles of money come to Alaska wrapped in clear plastic affixed with the seal of the Federal Reserve: a bald eagle atop a shield with 13 stripes for the colonies and 12 stars representing the Federal Reserve banks, all framed by olive and oak branches.

Coin orders don't fluctuate with the dividend payout, said Darlene Wilczynski, vice president in cash services at the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco. Pennies, nickels, dimes and quarters arrive periodically in Alaska by barge because air transport is too expensive and difficult. Armored carriers keep them in warehouses until banks request them.

Discretion is a hallmark of bankers. And true to form, Alaska banks were reluctant to discuss the whys and wherefores of their cash-demand patterns.

Wilczynski said cash orders to Alaska have held steady despite the widespread use of credit cards and online transactions. Cash use remains high for lower-cost goods such as coffee.

And many Alaskans, particularly those living in rural areas, lack access to banks and still rely heavily on paper currency as a medium of exchange.

"Cash is a way for people who lack access to banking services to continue to be part of the economy," she said.

Still, the days of the tangible dividend are waning. The state has encouraged applicants for years to switch to direct deposit, and it's worked. Only 14 percent of dividends were paid by check last year, according to the annual report from the Permanent Fund Dividend Division.

The check-printing operation has shrunk to the point that the giant printing press in the Juneau State Office Building has been replaced by much smaller industrial-grade printers, said division Director Sara Race.

"It's not as glamorous as it used to be," she said.