Half a century with ATMs

FIVE decades since it heralded a transformation in the way people obtained and used cash, the world’s first ATM was turned into gold for celebrations of its fiftieth anniversary. The brainchild of Scottish inventor Shepherd-Barron, the first ATM (automated teller machine) was opened on June 27, 1967, at a branch of Barclays bank in Enfield, north London, the first of six cash dispensers commissioned by the bank. English actor Reg Varney, who starred in the British TV comedy show On The Buses, was the first person to withdraw cash from the new machine. Now there are an estimated three million cash machines across the globe with some 70 000 cash machines in the UK alone which dispensed £175 billion (R2.87 trillion) in 2016.