Before I started working at WYRK 30 years ago – it was a routine with me, like it was with most people that you’d get a check at the end of the pay period and you’d go to the bank, cash it and you’d get your money. But coming here – they had a different system. Direct deposit into a checking account and you’d get your cash by going to an ATM. I’d never heard of that before. Well today – most companies work that way and nearly everybody knows how to operate an ATM.

A man by the name of Luther Simjian came up with the idea of a hole in the wall machine that would let people do their banking and he registered 20 different patents and tested his machine with City Bank of New York in 1939. But after six months the bank said there was little demand for it and didn’t use it anymore.

John Sheppard Baron is credited with inventing the modern ATM and installed it in a London bank in 1967. He came up with the idea when he was running late and his bank had just closed. His wife came up with the idea for personal identification passcode numbers.

Today – there are an estimated 2.2 million ATM’s around the world – one even at the South Pole – a machine at the remote McMurdo station that serves the small permanent team of Antarctic scientists. There are even ATM’s on some U-S Navy ships.

 

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