The phrase has to do with
reliability. You can
wager money on what will happen, and if you have inside information and you're 100% certain your bet is right, then your pay-off is assured; you might as well call it "money in the bank."
You can also use the phrase to describe someone who is very consistent in their behavior, because if
you bet on him or her, you know you'll win. It's usually used in a positive sense to describe someone who always delivers and brings joy or victory. A synonymous phrase would be "reliably good."
The slang use of the term "money," as in "you are
so money right now" is presumably derived from "money in the bank." It means not just
excellence, but excellence demonstrated on repeated occasions, establishing a pattern of reliability. It can be used to compliment someone for just one instance of excellence, but it still implies that this one instance reflects on the excellence of the person's larger character, that they would be expected to be excellent again.