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The Automated Teller Machine, or ATM, had several false starts and had overcome ingrained attitudes in the banking industry before taking and achieving the the universal acceptance that it enjoys today. It was commonly felt in that banking industry that customers "bonded" to individual tellers in a bank branch and that because of this factor customers would never accept server from a cold, impersonal machine. This notion was later exploded by the ATM revolution where customers eventually embraced the machine's convenience and twenty four hour a day accessibility.

The ATM's first false start occurred in the U.S. in 1939. Prolific inventor George Simjian put forward the concept of an Automated Teller Machine and applied for twenty patents for the technology surrounding his invention. Simjian convinced the National City Bank, forerunner of Citibank, to test a prototype of his ATM in Manhattan. The test marketing project did not go well. The only bank patrons that deigned to use his machine were gamblers and other disreputable types. Respectable customers could not seem to be convinced to try the new contraption. It is not clear whether this failure related to the design of the machine or poor marketing but, in any event, the project was abandoned. Another test of the concept was not tried in the U.S. for nearly thirty years.

The next phase in the evolution of the modern ATM is more controversial. The first modern ATM units were conceived, developed and deployed more or less concurrently in the U.S. and Britain int he mid-1960s. What is not controversial, however, is that the technological environment had changed radically between 1939 and 1967. What was different was the availability of high-speed, electronic computer networks that facilitated the creation of interbank transaction networks. This factor also helped with the rapid development and acceptance of credit cards. In was in this new, radically changed environment that the new generation of ATM designs made their appearance.

In Britain in 1966, Cambridge-educated inventor John Shepherd-Barron created a new ATM design on behalf of his employer De La Rue Instruments. Shepherd-Barron's design was later licensed to Barclay's Bank who installed the first unit near London in 1967. The machine created by De La Rue Instruments did not use a card with a magnetic strip and embedded Personal Identification Number. It used a magnetically embossed paper voucher. This particular design never achieved wide-spread acceptance

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