1969
First ATM Opens for Business
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.