# When did ATM machines first become widespread? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [February 14, 2015, 9:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-atm-machines-first-become-widespread/712672 "2015-02-14T21:18:01Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2015, 9:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-atm-machines-first-become-widespread/712672/41 "2015-02-18T21:32:51Z")
> [@Tread](#): > > ARRRRGGG > > _ **A** _utomated _ **T** _eller _ **M** _achine _Machine_ > > AAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGG > > that is all Not quite. One of the reasons they settled on “ATM” was that one common brand was “ **A** ny **T** ime **M** oney **Machine** ” or “ATM machine”. In fact early ATMs did very few “teller” functions, they only dispensed cash. So the name of Automated Teller Machine didn’t make much sense. You couldnt make deposits, etc. ---
**Author:** ![hajario](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hajario/32/171_2.png) [@hajario](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hajario)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2015, 9:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-atm-machines-first-become-widespread/712672/42 "2015-02-18T21:49:09Z")
I remember that my bank called theirs the Instant Teller. ---
**Author:** ![astorian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ad7895/32.png) [@astorian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astorian)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2015, 10:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-atm-machines-first-become-widespread/712672/43 "2015-02-18T22:32:48Z")
As far back as 1978, I saw TV commercials for banks during New York Yankees games, commercials that were touting their new money machines. As I said earlier, they weren’t widespread until the early Eighties, but they were coomon enough to be part of advertising in 1978. ---
**Author:** ![Hail\_Ants](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/dc4da7/32.png) [@Hail\_Ants](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hail_Ants)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2015, 5:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-atm-machines-first-become-widespread/712672/44 "2015-02-19T05:27:19Z")
> [@sbunny8](#): > > Around 1994 I remember seeing a commercial on TV where a couple of white American tourists are visiting some third-world country and they have some minor problem like a flat tire on a bicycle or something and this ten-year-old native boy runs up and says “Ehtiem fix everything!” and leads them through the streets while the couple whisper to each other “Who is this Ehtiem? Maybe he’s a bicycle mechanic?” and finally the little boy proudly shows them their destination, an ATM mounted in a wall. I remember that commercial well. Can’t believe it was that long ago! I also remember another ATM commercial (older I think) were this douchebag guy is on a first date with a chick. They’re waiting in line at a theater and when they get to the box office the guy says, “Oops, I forgot my wallet”. The woman then uses an ATM, goes back and says, “Good thing I can always get to _ **my money!** _” as the asshole guy tries to grab the change! ---
**Author:** ![An\_Gadai](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/d6d6ee/32.png) [@An\_Gadai](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/An_Gadai)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2015, 11:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-atm-machines-first-become-widespread/712672/45 "2015-02-19T11:01:27Z")
> [@ruadh](#): > > Still the case with ATMs in Ireland. Whenever I express my frustration about this, Irish people get this really confused look on their face, like they can’t even fathom the idea of depositing at an ATM. Curiously, AIB have this facility but only inside their premises. :smack: ---
**Author:** ![Pjen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Pjen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pjen)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2015, 11:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-atm-machines-first-become-widespread/712672/46 "2015-02-19T11:29:50Z")
There were machines dispensing cash in London in the early seventies. You were issued with two thin plastic light brown cards with no writing but with computer readable holes. You inserted these into a machine and it dispensed £10. I think you had to enter your bank account number as verification. The next day but one you received another card in the mail. £10 then was worth maybe $160 now. ---
**Author:** ![Fuzzy\_wuzzy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/a8b319/32.png) [@Fuzzy\_wuzzy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fuzzy_wuzzy)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2015, 11:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-atm-machines-first-become-widespread/712672/47 "2015-02-19T11:38:40Z")
> [@bonzer](#): > > As a British data point, I can remember standing next to my father on the first occasion he ever used one, c. 1981-2. (This was, incidentally, on the same street in Glasgow that saw the recent bin lorry tragedy.) > This then prompted me to write a comic short story for an English class exercise that relied on the notion that, while the reader was assumed to know what an ATM was, it might plausibly be the main character’s first encounter with one. > > Certainly by 1985, if not before, they had become a completely unremarkable feature of British life. Yes, certainly by the mid 1980’s they were commonplace. I can even remember withdrawing the odd fiver from them. The Clydesdale certainly allowed you to withdraw as little as £5 for quite a number of years. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2015, 11:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-atm-machines-first-become-widespread/712672/48 "2015-02-19T11:58:22Z")
I’m told the South African SASWITCH interbank system was the first in the world to allow ATMs not of one’s bank to be used (at a small fee) - this would be very early 80s. Can’t seem to confirm anywhere, though. ---
**Author:** ![Claverhouse](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/13edae/32.png) [@Claverhouse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Claverhouse)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2015, 2:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-atm-machines-first-become-widespread/712672/49 "2015-02-19T14:33:43Z")
> [@Fuzzy\_wuzzy](#): > > Yes, certainly by the mid 1980’s they were commonplace. I can even remember withdrawing the odd fiver from them. The Clydesdale certainly allowed you to withdraw as little as £5 for quite a number of years. The ones at the local Tesco still do, they are NatWest etc., although the one outside the local NatWest is £10 minimum. I recently discovered by pressing something like ‘other services’ one can do more odd stuff, like move money between accounts. Generally most ATMs in British towns are free and allow any bank card to be used, but of recent years more so there’s been a disturbing trend of private ATMs attached to shops to sneakily charge a fee for withdrawal. Anyone remember those weird outside night deposit boxes, a wrought metal door with a giant handle, on the outside of banks ? Never used one myself, but I always though they looked cool. ---
**Author:** ![Carryon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/9fc29f/32.png) [@Carryon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Carryon)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2015, 2:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-atm-machines-first-become-widespread/712672/50 "2015-02-19T14:41:01Z")
I grew up on a farm in a rural area bordering suburbia, I first saw one in 1986 and by 1988, they were common at the banks. By 1991, they were all over the retail areas too. ---
**Author:** ![Defensive\_Indifference](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/defensive_indifference/32/6502_2.png) [@Defensive\_Indifference](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Defensive_Indifference)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2015, 3:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-atm-machines-first-become-widespread/712672/51 "2015-02-19T15:29:05Z")
> [@kenobi\_65](#): > > In Wisconsin, the [TYME](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TYME)\* ATM system was a cross-bank network which was fairly ubiquitous in that state by the early 1980s (and had many free-standing ATMs, as well as those at banks). It was, apparently, the first interbank ATM network in the U.S. As I remember it, you could get cash from your own bank account at any TYME Machine (yes, they made that pun intentionally). Oh yeah, my wife grew up in Wisconsin, and when we first started dating in 1999-2000, she talked about the Tyme Machines. I recall seeing them the first few times I visited her folks. My first recollection of ATMs was from probably the early to mid 80’s, when people referred to them as “ugly tellers”. Maybe that was a regional (St. Louis) thing, I don’t know. I remember one bank touting its personal service with an ad that said something like “and we never call our tellers ugly!” ---
**Author:** ![Defensive\_Indifference](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/defensive_indifference/32/6502_2.png) [@Defensive\_Indifference](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Defensive_Indifference)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2015, 3:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-atm-machines-first-become-widespread/712672/52 "2015-02-19T15:44:59Z")
Does anyone else remember this TV ad from maybe the early 90s? An American guy is lost in some remote, foreign place. I want to say it was a tropical forest kind of setting. He needs cash, and a local kid tries to help him out. The kid keeps excitedly telling the guy “ayteeim! ayteeim!”, which the guy thinks is a word in the kid’s language. Finally the kid shows the guy where the local ATM is. I’m probably getting many of the details wrong. ---
**Author:** ![MrAtoz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@MrAtoz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrAtoz)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2015, 4:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-atm-machines-first-become-widespread/712672/53 "2015-02-19T16:04:43Z")
> [@Bayard](#): > > Does anyone else remember this TV ad from maybe the early 90s? An American guy is lost in some remote, foreign place. I want to say it was a tropical forest kind of setting. He needs cash, and a local kid tries to help him out. The kid keeps excitedly telling the guy “ayteeim! ayteeim!”, which the guy thinks is a word in the kid’s language. Finally the kid shows the guy where the local ATM is. I’m probably getting many of the details wrong. I suspect **sbunny8** remembers it! 🙂 (See post #37) ---
**Author:** ![Defensive\_Indifference](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/defensive_indifference/32/6502_2.png) [@Defensive\_Indifference](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Defensive_Indifference)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2015, 4:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-atm-machines-first-become-widespread/712672/54 "2015-02-19T16:41:04Z")
> [@MrAtoz](#): > > I suspect **sbunny8** remembers it! 🙂 > > (See post #37) Dagnabbit! Read first, _then_ post! Sorry, **sbunny8**. ---
**Author:** ![Baron\_Greenback](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/baron_greenback/32/48_2.png) [@Baron\_Greenback](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baron_Greenback)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2015, 5:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-atm-machines-first-become-widespread/712672/55 "2015-02-19T17:36:44Z")
> [@Claverhouse](#): > > Anyone remember those weird outside night deposit boxes, a wrought metal door with a giant handle, on the outside of banks ? Never used one myself, but I always though they looked cool. The night safe? I think most branches still have them - business customers only, need a key to access. ---
**Author:** ![Fuzzy\_wuzzy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/a8b319/32.png) [@Fuzzy\_wuzzy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fuzzy_wuzzy)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2015, 11:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-atm-machines-first-become-widespread/712672/56 "2015-02-19T23:18:20Z")
> [@Claverhouse](#): > > The ones at the local Tesco still do, they are NatWest etc., although the one outside the local NatWest is £10 minimum. > > I recently discovered by pressing something like ‘other services’ one can do more odd stuff, like move money between accounts. > Generally most ATMs in British towns are free and allow any bank card to be used, but of recent years more so there’s been a disturbing trend of private ATMs attached to shops to sneakily charge a fee for withdrawal. > > Anyone remember those weird outside night deposit boxes, a wrought metal door with a giant handle, on the outside of banks ? Never used one myself, but I always though they looked cool. Im astonished you can still get fivers from some of these ATM’s. ---
**Author:** ![Baron\_Greenback](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/baron_greenback/32/48_2.png) [@Baron\_Greenback](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baron_Greenback)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2015, 11:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-atm-machines-first-become-widespread/712672/57 "2015-02-19T23:27:52Z")
> [@Fuzzy\_wuzzy](#): > > Im astonished you can still get fivers from some of these ATM’s. I got a couple of fivers out of one just a few days ago, first time for many years. ---
**Author:** ![Claverhouse](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/13edae/32.png) [@Claverhouse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Claverhouse)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2015, 12:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-atm-machines-first-become-widespread/712672/58 "2015-02-20T00:00:00Z")
> [@Baron\_Greenback](#): > > The night safe? I think most branches still have them - business customers only, need a key to access. Well, they seem to have disappeared around here [East Anglia]. The world economy has been so good of recent years that banks have decided to splurge and expensively remodel their branches. — Which has pretty much the same outcome as frequent shopfitting remodelling: no-one cares and it doesn’t increase trade, and people have to search for where things now are — Still, I’d guess that night safes might be antiquated with electronic cash systems, plus those armoured vans with chaps in helmets doing the cash transfers. Dunno if they had them in all countries though. ---
**Author:** ![Bones\_Daley](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/bc8723/32.png) [@Bones\_Daley](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bones_Daley)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2015, 12:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-atm-machines-first-become-widespread/712672/59 "2015-02-20T00:29:03Z")
In Scotland, early or mid eighties, the TV advert I remember was of a bespectacled geeky looking guy in a suit and tie approaching the ATM somewhat nervously , looking round him and then bending down and saying to the screen “is the manager in?” ---
**Author:** ![Baron\_Greenback](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/baron_greenback/32/48_2.png) [@Baron\_Greenback](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baron_Greenback)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2015, 12:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-atm-machines-first-become-widespread/712672/60 "2015-02-20T00:29:10Z")
> [@Claverhouse](#): > > Still, I’d guess that night safes might be antiquated with electronic cash systems, plus those armoured vans with chaps in helmets doing the cash transfers. Less used probably, but there’s still loads of cash-heavy small businesses that might find them useful. Here’s an application form to allow access to a branch night safe on the Lloyds website, for example: [http://www.lloydsbank.com/assets-business-banking/pdfs/NightSafe\_facilities\_11827-10%207%2009.pdf](http://www.lloydsbank.com/assets-business-banking/pdfs/NightSafe_facilities_11827-10%207%2009.pdf) [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-atm-machines-first-become-widespread/712672.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-atm-machines-first-become-widespread/712672.md?page=4)