BFC Bulletins Monthly News Digest
Tags Customer Experience Digital Transformation Payments
The automated teller machine (ATM) turned 50 years old this June. In celebration of its 50th anniversary, here are little-known facts about the ATM:
- The first “cash-dispenser” was installed in 1966 in Japan.
- The first ATM was installed in London in Barclays’ Enfield branch in 1967. This specific location was chosen because it was the only one with windows high enough off the ground to accommodate exterior installation.
- The world’s second ATM was installed in Sweden, just a few weeks after the one one installed in London.
- In late 1969, Britain’s Midland Bank (today HSBC) was the first to introduce the magnetic stripe card for ATM access.
- The first ATM to use a four-digit PIN was installed at Westminster Bank in July 1967. A plastic card with perforated holes was inserted into the machine, and then the user punched in a PIN. If everything matched up, cash was dispensed.
- In 1994, Egypt’s Banque du Caire became the first ATM deployer to use cellphone networks to connect to a central computer; wireless networks weren’t used in the U.S. until 1998.
- NCR Corp. is considered to have launched the first full-function machine (offering transfers, payments, detailed statement printing and envelope deposits) in 1984.
- Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce launched the world’s first web-enabled ATM in 1997.
- Countries that did not have ATMs until 2004 or later: Afghanistan; Laos; Iraq; Vietnam; Kazakhstan and Guyana.
- Somalia installed its very first ATM in 2014 (in a tourist hotel in the capital of Mogadishu).
- The world’s highest ATM is 4,693 meters above sea level in Khunjerab Pass on the Pakistan-China border, while the world’s most remote ATM is located at McMurdo Station in
- Worldwide, there are 45 ATMs per 100,000 adults.
- There are approximately 3 million ATMs throughout the world, with an average of 280 new ones installed each day.
