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.
Llpoh’s frequent comment about technology replacing human laborers came to mind.
Another thought: amazing just how many ignorant yutes view ATMs as money trees you go to, to pick off the fruit, w/o realizing the need for deposited savings first.
Those smaller, floor mounted, non-bank ATMs in the ghetto near me soon became theft booty targets, often by running a truck through the front door / plate glass windows after hours, wrapping a chain around the ATM, and yanking it out like a stump in a field.
Last thought: how soon will mobile phone banking supplant ATMs? When the push to eliminate cash ramps up.
I can’t believe how often people use debit cards for routine, low dollar amount purchases under 10-20 bucks, as I wait behind them in line, with cash in hand. In Europe, the mobile phone as a digital debit card is reportedly fast replacing plastic cards for transactions, and it’s gaining traction here.
Yet if the grid goes down, and we need to procure some items, what then, bitches? But, by then, cash might be like Venezuela or Wiemar, eh?
Got pre-’65 coins? Barter items?
The times, they are a changin. Fast. Too fast, for a few of us traditionalist, old fashioned fuddy-duddy’s. Adapt, or get left behind, Pops. sigh….
At age 61 I’ve yet to use an ATM. Never needed to as my wife goes to the bank every week (yes, she goes in to see a real live teller) and draws the cash we’re likely to need for the week. Of course, we have a small stash at home if we need it.
Moving to a cashless society will just enable the Deep State to increase its control over us.