Engineers
AUTOMATIC · How the ATM Changed the World · by Marvin Bowers
A withdrawal lasts seconds.
The system behind it took decades to build.
Coming May 2027
AUTOMATIC is the history of one machine and the system that grew up around it: the card and the code, the networks that connected rival banks, and the businesses that carried cash beyond the branch.
Coming May 2027 in hardcover, paperback and ebook.
Tap the book to dispense it again.
From Chapter 5, “Several Firsts”
Enfield, north London
June 27, 1967
Barclays installed its first public cash dispenser outside the Enfield branch in north London on June 27, 1967. The bank and De La Rue Instruments had developed the equipment together, and the actor Reg Varney took part in the official opening. The transaction available to customers was short enough to describe without a list of menu options: insert a special paper voucher, enter a personal code and receive £10.
The location outside the branch was essential to the service Barclays advertised. Customers could obtain cash when the staffed bank was closed, during the night as well as the day.
Getting cash once meant planning around bank hours, finding someone willing to cash a cheque, or carrying enough money for the trip. The ATM changed those arrangements. More about the book
Release news
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The book
The world beyond banking hours
Getting cash once meant planning around bank hours, finding someone willing to cash a cheque, or carrying enough money for the trip. The ATM changed those arrangements.
AUTOMATIC follows the inventors, manufacturers, bankers and independent operators who built the machines and the businesses behind them. It traces the disputed firsts, the negotiations that connected rival banks, and the retail businesses that carried the cash machine far beyond the branch.
From Britain and the United States to Japan, India, Brazil and Kenya, Marvin Bowers examines how the ATM changed banking, travel and commerce, who paid for convenience, and who still struggled to obtain cash.
Three problems to solve
Before a machine could hand out cash
Bankers
had to trust customers to identify themselves without a teller.
Competing institutions
had to agree on whose cards would work, whose cash would be dispensed, and who would pay.
Independent operators brought the ATM into shops, petrol stations and other places banks had not reached. Cash delivery, repairs and processing became businesses of their own. AUTOMATIC follows these decisions across countries and through the continuing arguments over payment choice and access to cash.
“They can get cashback in the shop, but I can’t stay open until the wee small hours; I can’t be open at 6 in the morning.”
Book details
For booksellers, libraries and press
The cover and author photo are on the author page.
- Title
- AUTOMATIC: How the ATM Changed the World
- Author
- Marvin Bowers
- Release
- May 2027, first edition
- Inside
- A prologue, 24 chapters and an epilogue, with notes, sources and an index
- Hardcover
- ISBN 979-8-9823941-5-6
- Paperback
- ISBN 979-8-9823941-6-3
- Ebook
- ISBN 979-8-9823941-7-0
Press kit
Cover, photo and a short description
Book coverJPG, 1950 × 2817
Author photoJPG
Short description
AUTOMATIC: How the ATM Changed the World follows the inventors, manufacturers, bankers and independent operators who built the cash machine and the businesses behind it, from Britain and the United States to Japan, India, Brazil and Kenya. Coming May 2027 in hardcover, paperback and ebook.
Interviews
Use the release news form and choose “Press, podcast or bookstore.” Marvin will reply.
Shop
AUTOMATIC merch
Four designs taken from the cash machine itself: the title, the screen, the keypad and the 24 hour sign, on tees and mugs, plus a zipper pouch marked like a bank bag. Everything is printed to order through Printify.
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Please Take Your Cash Tee
The last thing a cash machine tells you, in green type like the old ATM screens.
From $19.99Buy
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Enter Your PIN Tee
An ATM keypad, with the cancel, clear and enter keys in red, yellow and green.
From $19.99Buy
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VALUABLES Zipper Pouch
A zipper pouch marked like a bank bag, for cash, cards and receipts. Small or large.
From $11.99Buy
Orders are placed on Printify’s checkout page, which opens in a new tab.
Also by Marvin Bowers
CASH and CONVENIENCE
CASH
A History of the Machines, Innovators, and Infrastructure Behind America’s Money
How America learned to secure, count and move its money, from the vault makers and the cash register to armored transport, the ATM and the networks behind it.
CONVENIENCE
The Stores That Built America
The story of the American convenience store, from the crossroads general store to Wawa, Sheetz, QuikTrip and Buc-ee’s.