Today in 1969, the first automatic teller machine (ATM) in the United States was installed by Chemical Bank in Rockville Center, New York. Chemical's cash machine, initially known as a Docuteller was designed by Donald Wetzel of Docutel. The first cash machines were designed to dispense a fixed amount of cash when a user inserted a specially coded card. A Chemical Bank advertisement boasted "On Sept. 2 our bank will open at 9:00 and never close again."
The theme of non-stop banking continued to evolve as ATMs proliferated. When a huge blizzard hit New York in January 1978, banks were closed for days and ATM use increased by 20%. Within days, Citibank had launched its “The Citi Never Sleeps” ad campaign.
The impact of ATMs on employment has been highlighted in recent discussions of the jobs destruction potential of modern AI. When they were introduced, many experts predicted massive unemployment for bank tellers. In fact, the impact of the ATM machine was not to reduce the number of tellers but to increase it.
The average bank branch in an urban area required about 21 tellers, according to James Bessen. ATMs reduced this number to about 13 tellers. But that meant it was cheaper to operate a bank branch and the number of branch offices increased. As a result, demand for bank tellers also increased.