On this day in 1969, America’s first automatic teller machine (ATM) makes its public debut, dispensing cash to customers at Chemical Bank in Rockville Center, New York. ATMs went on to revolutionize the banking industry, eliminating the need to visit a bank to conduct basic financial transactions. By the 1980s, these money machines had become widely popular and handled many of the functions previously performed by human tellers, such as check deposits and money transfers between accounts. Today, ATMs are as indispensable to most people as cell phones and e-mail.
Several inventors worked on early versions of a cash-dispensing machine, but Don Wetzel, an executive at Docutel, a Dallas company that developed automated baggage-handling equipment, is generally credited as coming up with the idea for the modern ATM. Wetzel reportedly conceived of the concept while waiting on line at a bank. The ATM that debuted in New York in 1969 was only able to give out cash, but in 1971, an ATM that could handle multiple functions, including providing customers’ account balances, was introduced.
ATMs eventually expanded beyond the confines of banks and today can be found everywhere from gas stations to convenience stores to cruise ships. There is even an ATM at McMurdo Station in Antarctica. Non-banks lease the machines (so-called “off premise” ATMs) or own them outright.
Today there are well over 1 million ATMs around the world, with a new one added approximately every five minutes. It’s estimated that more than 170 Americans over the age of 18 had an ATM card in 2005 and used it six to eight times a month. Not surprisingly, ATMs get their busiest workouts on Fridays.
In the 1990s, banks began charging fees to use ATMs, a profitable move for them and an annoying one for consumers. Consumers were also faced with an increase in ATM crimes and scams. Robbers preyed on people using money machines in poorly lit or otherwise unsafe locations, and criminals also devised ways to steal customers’ PINs (personal identification numbers), even setting up fake money machines to capture the information. In response, city and state governments passed legislation such as New York’s ATM Safety Act in 1996, which required banks to install such things as surveillance cameras, reflective mirrors and locked entryways for their ATMs.
[Worker] “Sir??…. You can use our automated checkout counter over here if you don’t want to wait!”
[Me] “Is there a discount on the bill for using that service?”
[Worker] “Oh no, of course not!”
[Me] “Then please don’t ask me to eliminate your job”
[Worker] “Oh no, the company would never do that!”
[Me] Really?……..
I have never used an ATM machine.
Am I a Neanderthal?
Well, I did get the debit card 2 yrs. ago,
but I have never used it.
You and Dave can report to the Smithsonian, living fossils.
I hope you’re not of the people who write checks for $5.
And then, thanks to Alan Greenspan and the Federal Reserve, virtually everyone was able to turn their house into an ATM that just kept spitting out money to spend on crap they didn’t need, couldn’t afford, and saddling them with debt they couldn’t repay.
ATM’s are great. Don’t have to get out of your car. Don’t have to wait in line for a teller. Don’t have to talk to a 90 IQ teller. What’s not to like?