57: ATM

 

57 years ago today (September 2, 1969) the first Automated Teller Machine (ATM) was used in the United States.

It was only 2 months since the Americans put the first Men on the Moon and it was at a time when American Women had to have Male Permission for everything from Getting their Own Passport to opening a Bank Account.

Unmarried Women had to have their Father or Brother’s permission and Married Women had to have their Husband’s permission.

Chemical Bank (now part of JP Morgan) installed a prototype ATM in the US at its branch in Rockville Centre, New York.

 The first ATMs were designed to dispense a fixed amount of cash when a User inserted a specially coded card.

A Chemical Bank advertisement boasted "On Sept. 2 our Bank will open at 9:00 and never close again.”

ATMs turned Banking from a 9 am to 3 pm chore (at a time when 99% of Americans used cash to buy things) to a 24/7 service.

The only catch was that ATMs only accepted Cards from their own Bank.

It wasn’t until the late 1970s that you could use your Card in any ATM regardless of which Bank owned it.

There are currently 330,535 ATMs across the US and 4.2 Million around the World.