Fig. 1: Image Of Automated Teller Machine(ATM)
It is true that most inventions have happened due to sheer necessity and invention of ATM machine is one of them. Now the question that arises is what was the necessity, what called for the invention of a round the clock cash dispenser? Who invented it- a broke student or a shopaholic lady, a businessman or a banker, too tired of cashing the cheques? Also known as Cashpoint or Hole-in-the-Wall Machine (Britain), ABM or Automatic Banking Machine (USA), All-time Money (India), and Minibank (Norway) and so much more, the history of ATM is full of interesting facts, some we know, some we don’t.
Let’s tear through the pages of history to know more. An Armenian named Luther George Simjian was forced to move to USA in the year 1920, under the account of Armenian Genocide. He owned to his credit the invention of a portrait camera and then rolled out the formulated idea of ATM, the Automated Teller Machine.
Confident of his invention, he persuaded Citibank to run his product on a six month trial basis. Soon enough, he was disappointed with the performance and the lack of users and concluded that ATM was a wasteful addition to personal banking. And lack of demand for the ATM finally forced him to take a back seat. Clear enough; the time was not right for this concept to have been accepted generously. Simjian clearly lost out on the success and fame and the same was passed on to two other gentlemen, John Shepherd-Barron and Don Wetzel.
John Shepherd-Barron was a Scottish national born in India. Later he relocated to Britain and pursued his education from the University of Edinburgh, and at Trinity College, Cambridge. After returning empty handed from the bank, Shepherd-Barron was disappointed to have no other solution to wait till the bank would open next. And thus in a similar fashion like Archimedes, Shepherd-Barron claims to have hit his Eureka moment while taking a bath. A self-sufficient cash dispensing machine was what he was thinking about. And soon the ATM was invented in the early 1960s. The invention of a self-sufficient cash dispensing machine was his second and successful attempt at inventions. Earlier he had invented an instrument to scare away seals at his Scottish Salmon farms. Unfortunately, this device instead of deterring the seals attracted them, and was a failure.
