During recent years, the old-fashioned stick-up bank robbery has nearly faded from the New York crime scene. A quieter kind of bank robbery, one requiring only a pen and piece of paper, has been steadily taking its place.

Through December 27, there were just 24 of the bank robberies in which a crook with a weapon threatens a teller and flees.

During the same period there were 260 “note robberies,” in which a suspect enters a bank and hands the teller a note demanding money. Thus, note robberies this year made up more than 90% of the bank robberies recorded by the Joint NYPD-FBI Bank Robbery Task Force.

Note robberies have been on the rise since 2000, when the city had 104 for the year. The number peaked in 2003, at 342. In 2004, they dropped to 184, but this year they are again on the rise.

One note robber targeted 16 Wachovia banks between March and September. He was caught after detectives narrowed down his next likely target and staked him out, police said.

Law enforcement officials said there are explanations for the changing numbers in both categories of bank robbery.

On the one hand, many criminals are wising up to the tough federal laws that await them if they commit a bank robbery with a gun, an FBI spokesman, James Margolin, said.

“Bank robbers are conscious of this stuff,” he said. “Use of a gun in the commission of a bank robbery is an aggravating circumstance. They can get serious time with no good behavior time or probation.”

Meanwhile, some banks aren’t using all the preventive measures the police recommend to prevent bank robberies, including bandit barriers, dye packs, and greeters who approach customers in line to ask if they need assistance, a police spokesman, Deputy Commissioner Paul Browne, said.

After bank robberies surpassed 400 in 2003, the New York Bankers Association joined with the NYPD-FBI task force to assess whether new measures could be used to thwart bank robberies. Many banks joined the law enforcement network, “Apple,” which allows banks to notify the police and other banks after they are robbed, the association’s president, Michael Smith, said.

Still, a police source said yesterday that some banks have been encouraging tellers to hand over money to note robbers without even sounding an alarm. The practice prevents banks from becoming crime scenes, but encourages note robbers to commit more crimes, the source said.

An author and motivational speaker who spent seven and half years in prison for a string of five bank robberies, Troy Evans, said many robbers learn about the ease of note robberies while in prison.

“At banks, they are flat out instructed, told, and trained to hand out the money,” he said. “The last thing they want is any kind of hostage situation. If you are a would-be robber looking for your next fix or money, you choose a bank.”

These crimes of opportunity are not very successful, he said. About 80% of those who attempt them are caught.