The Development of Cash Dispensing Technology in the UK

There has been considerable discussion of the role of banks in earlier developments in computing technology. This article gives a useful account of an important technological change by detailing the process of invention of cash machines in Britain. The success of currency dispensers in the 1960s was the technological precondition for the now ubiquitous automated teller machines (ATM). Although the mechanization of banks' routine clerical operations at the point of contact with retail customers is a topic of discussion not generally known, the question as to who invented the cash machine is less illuminating than an understanding of the process of innovation itself and how the need of bankers to offer out-of-hours service transformed into a concrete solution. An examination of the three earliest separate instances of this innovation not only suggests the history of this device but demonstrates how users - in this case banks - shape and direct technological change