LONDON A Scotsman credited with inventing the world’s first automatic cash machine has died at the age of 84 after a short illness, his funeral director has said.
John Shepherd-Barron died peacefully in hospital in Inverness, Scotland, on Saturday, said funeral director Alasdair Rhind.
He started thinking about how to obtain cash outside business hours after being locked out of his bank, and the eureka moment came when he was in the bath, the BBC reported.
“It struck me there must be a way I could get my own money, anywhere in the world or the UK,” he told the broadcaster in a 2007 interview.
“I hit upon the idea of a chocolate bar dispenser, but replacing chocolate with cash.”
Barclays commissioned the invention and the first automatic teller machine (ATM) was installed at a London bank in 1967. It paid out a maximum of 10 pounds a time.
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