The History of the ATM

The Answer:

Don Wetzel is credited with inventing the Automated Teller Machine in the late 1960's, while working for a company in Dallas called Docutel.

A graduate of the University of Loyola in New Orleans (Class of 1951), Wetzel played professional minor-league baseball for three years after college before putting his bachelor's degree in foreign trade to work at IBM. He joined Docutel in 1968 and received the patent for the ATM in 1973.

Here is a comprehensive interview with Wetzel, in which he discusses the complete history of the ATM's development.

-The Editors