According to a variety of media reports, the Automated Teller Machine in the U.S. turns 40 this month and Wired Magazine compiled some ATM numbers to help commemorate the happy day.
First, while ATMs as most Americans know them now date from 1969, the first "mechanical cash dispenser" was deployed thirty years earlier, in 1939. It lasted six months before being removed because no one used it.
The magazine estimated that there are 403,000 ATMs in the world today, that 85% of financial transactions in the world today are made in cash and that 239 new ATMs are installed, worldwide, every day. Wired did not report whether those are in new locations or merely replacing older machines.
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In the U.S. there is one ATM for every 761 permanent residents and there are even two ATM's, the magazine reported, at research stations in Antarctica.
Further, in the U.S., 55% of transactions at ATMs are withdrawals, 18% are deposits, 9% are balance inquiries and another 18% are "other."
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