World’s Smallest ATM

27 June is World ATM Day. On this day 55 years ago, the world’s first 24/7 cash machine, or Automated Teller Machine as it was later to become known, was unveiled in London.

To celebrate, the ATM Appreciation Society (ATMAS) a selected ‘The World’s Smallest ATM’ as its ‘Extreme ATM of the Year 2022’.

Invented by a Scotsman, it was appropriate that the ATM Appreciation Society’s founder, son of the ATM inventor, John Shepherd-Barron, announced it in St Andrew’s Square, the financial centre of Edinburgh.

‘I started the ATM Appreciation Society in honour of my Dad,’ said James, a disaster risk management consultant, holding aloft a small Lego model of an ATM. ‘But [I] did so to make a serious case for cash and cash machines in a non-serious way.’ ‘The public take ATMs for granted,’ he explained, ‘without realising the good they do for society, especially societies in crisis.’