John Shepherd-Barron, a Scotsman often credited with inventing the world’s first automatic cash machine, has died at age 84.
Whether you think he’s truly the inventor of the ATM depends a little bit on how you define “ATM.” The machine he invented bears little resemblance to modern ATMs:
The first automatic teller machine, now known as ATMs, was installed at a branch of Barclays Plc in a north London suburb on June 27, 1967.
Plastic bank cards had not been invented yet, so Shepherd-Barron’s machine used special checks that were chemically coded. Customers placed the checks in a drawer, and after entering a personal identification number, a second drawer would spring open with a 10 pound note.
Two years later, a completely different machine, invented by a completely different person, was installed at a bank in Manhattan. That machine was the first modern ATM, and all subsequent models were patterned after it, not Shepherd-Barron’s machine.
Shepherd-Barron also claims credit for inventing four-digit Personal Indentification Numbers (PINs):
Shepherd-Barron originally planned to make personal identification numbers six digits long, but cut the number to four after his wife Caroline complained that six was too many.
“Over the kitchen table, she said she could only remember four figures, so because of her, four figures became the world standard,” he told the BBC.
As with many world-changing inventions, the ATM was an idea being worked on by several different people at the same time. Barron’s machine came first, but because of the cumbersome interface, didn’t catch on. It was a company named Docutel, selling a machine invented by an American named Don Wetzel, who produced the first commercially successful ATM.
But both men can claim credit for an idea that launched a financial revolution. There are now nearly 2 million ATMs installed worldwide. And it all a little over 40 years ago today, in the minds of a Scotsman and a Texan.
