The Courier & Advertiser (Fife Edition)
Time to cash in
As the cash machine or “hole in the wall” celebrates its 50th birthday, Michael Alexander examines the role played by Dundee in its global development
Fifty years ago today, the world’s first cash machine was unveiled outside a Barclay’s branch in Enfield Town, North London. British inventor and businessman John Shepherd-Barron, who worked for e La Rue, the banknote printer, was inspired to design a machine that dispensed cash in response to banks’ restricted opening hours at the time.
He came up with the idea of the automated teller machine (ATM) in 1965 after he arrived at his bank a minute too late to withdraw money.
“It struck me that there must be a way I could get my own money, anywhere in the world or the UK,” he was quoted as saying. “I hit on the idea of a chocolate-bar dispenser, but replacing chocolate with cash.”
Customers had to place special vouchers in a drawer to withdraw £10 at a time.
Closed doors
Crucially, it meant people who needed to withdraw money no longer had to rely on bank cashiers, who closed the doors at 3.30pm.
The machine – the first of six he was commissioned to design – was an instant hit and the concept ultimately transformed everyday banking for millions of people all over the globe.
Today, there are 3.1 million ATMs worldwide, with around 70,000 cashpoints in Britain. Of these, about 53,000 are free to use while around 16,000 charge.
Many not only let customers take money out but also allow them to deposit funds in their accounts, pay bills, top up mobile phones or transfer money to other people.
Yet much of the global roll-out might not have happened if it wasn’t for the work that took place over decades in Dundee.
It was here NCR’s first ATM – the Model 770 – was designed and built in the 1970s before being installed at banks throughout the UK.
In its heyday, millions of machines were shipped from Dundee and other NCR locations to financial institutions across the world.
The firm started life as National Cash Registers in Dayton, Ohio, in 1884 and had prospered across the States.
Prospered
Work on a new NCR factory at Wester Gourdie began on October 22 1945.
By the mid-1960s the Dundee presence of “The Cash” amounted to six factories employing 4,000 people. At its height, output was £26 million and it was making 25 different products.
By the late ’70s the corporate board in Ohio gave Dundee NCR the charter to design, develop and manufacture ATMs.
At its peak one in three of Europe’s cash machines were made in Dundee.
But in 2009, after earlier rounds of redundancies, the company finally ceased production in the city, ending 62 years of manufacturing at the Wester Gourdie factory.
An NCR presence does remain in the city, however, with the opening of its Research and Development Centre of Excellence, the Discovery Centre, in 2001.
Today, more than 500 people are based in NCR’s Dundee centre, with the Discovery Centre being one of the company’s key strategic R&D sites.
NCR financial services SelfServ marketing manager Colin Gordon says this ensures Dundee remains at the heart of NCR’s ATM development, with experts in roles such as usability and Cx Design, hardware and software engineering and new product innovation.