The Automated Teller Machine, known by its acronym ATM, is an electromechanical device, that facilitates transactions, allowing authorized users, using special plastic cards, to withdraw cash from their account and access other services such as account balance inquiries, fund transfers, and deposit acceptance. Today, more than 3 million ATMs are installed around the world, according to ATMIA, which represents ATM manufacturers.
The idea of building such a machine, which would facilitate transactions outside bank branch hours, belonged to many bankers in the East and West and began to take shape after the war with the development of computers. On 30 June 1960, the American-Armenian photographer and inventor Luther Simjian (1905-1997) filed a patent application for an automatic cash withdrawal machine called Bankograph, which he received on 26 February 1963. In the meantime, the machine was experimentally installed in New York by City Bank (now Citibank), but was withdrawn after six months due to lack of interest from the bank's customers.
Today, it is widely accepted that the man who invented the ATM was Scottish economist John Sheffield-Baron[/B] (1925-2010). While working at the printing company "De La Rue" in the sixties, he came up with the idea to build an ATM machine. The inspiration came to him in the bathroom of his house: "I thought there must be a way to be able to withdraw money wherever I am, in the UK or in the world. I had the idea of a chocolate vending machine, the only difference being that I would exchange the chocolate for cash," he said in an interview."
Barclays was the first bank to be convinced by Sheffield-Baron's invention, codenamed DACS. After a glass of gin, the then CEO of the bank signed a contract with him to develop his invention. The first machine was installed at Barclays' branch in Enfield, North London, on 27 June 1967, which is considered to be the birthday of the ATM. Comedian Reg Varney was the first customer to make a cash withdrawal.
Plastic cards had not yet been invented and the ATM used special cheques impregnated with carbon 14, a substance with mild radioactive radiation. The machine detected it and then matched it with a security number.
A side product of the invention was the security code, our familiar PIN. Originally, Seferd-Baron wanted the PIN to consist of six digits, but Caroline's wife, in a conversation they had at the kitchen table, advised him not to go beyond four digits, otherwise she would not be able to remember the code.
Shefferd-Baron's ATM won the bet, being nine days ahead of the Swedish Bankomat and a month ahead of the English Chubb MD2, promoted by Westminster Bank. In Greece, the first ATMs were installed in the 1980s (Alpha Bank in 1983, Citibank in 1985) and their use began to spread in the last decade of the 20th century.
Source: sansimera
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