Banking has evolved a great deal over the years, but for the most part, the changes have been technology based. A lot of these technologies we consider very simple in hindsight, but the truth is that they were incredibly significant and the result of some genius. The main technology that I will speak about today is the technology involved in ATM machines. There is some debate as to when the first ATM machine was developed, but the first one to show up within the United Kingdom was in 1967. Barclays Bank installed an ATM machine on the outside of one of their main locations, and it was somewhat primitive. In fact, to use the machine you had to get paper certificates that you could later insert in exchange for a ten dollar bill. Consequently, if you wanted to get hundred dollars out of the machine next weekend, then you had to get ten paper certificates.

While the first ATM machines were somewhat simplistic, they were a step in the right direction. Within five years, the ATM machines that banks around the world, including Barclays, would be using would very closely resemble today’s machines. While the original ATM machine still meant you would have to go to the bank during their normal hours to get the paper certificates, with the modern machines you could go years without ever actually stepping into a bank. You can now make deposits, make withdraws, and make transfers from an ATM machine. Also, about 15 years after the original ATM was installed at Barclays Bank, a revolution would hit the ATM world, and it was the interbank network.

The interbank network was, following the ATM card, the most significant development in the world of ATM banking. Prior to the interbank network, you couldn’t just go to any ATM you cared to, and get money out of your account. This was because your account information wasn’t accessible from ATM machines that weren’t part of your bank’s system. This is one of the reasons that checks stuck around for so long, because if your bank was only on one side of the country and you were on another, you couldn’t get money. The benefits of the interbank network aren’t even something that we really think about today, because we know that we can get money from any ATM, in any place in the world. However, to get to this point was a big struggle, and it meant that banks would have to, in some degree, open up their information to requests originating outside of their internal network.

The security protocols that had to be established for this were complex, delicate, and expensive. In fact, they weren’t only expensive for the banks, but if you consider a $2 fee expensive, then they were expensive for the customer as well. Still, $2 is a small price to pay for the level of convenience that the interbank network provided. Prior to the interbank network, one of the inventions that has made the biggest difference in the world of the ATM machine was the ATM card. The plastic card with a magnetic strip on it was conceived by an IBM engineer by the name of Forrest Parry. Parry knew that putting a magnetic strip on a plastic card would allow them to store information on the card, but he didn’t know how to affix the two together.

In fact, he found that every adhesive he used would fail, and soon he was sitting at home voicing his frustrations to his wife. Instinctively, Mrs. Parry took the two items, heated up her iron, and fused the two together! So, next time you use your ATM card, you can thank Mr. Parry for the idea, but thank Mrs. Parry for making it possible! The ATM machine is one of the most significant banking inventions in modern history! So, next time you are waiting a couple seconds for your money to spit out, instead of cursing, thank the machine for the convenience!