Kottayam: Even as the currency crisis has been forcing people queue up before ATM booths, Kerala’s first ATM (Automated Teller Machine) is silently downing its shutters for good.
The ATM was set up in December 1993 by the British Bank of the Middle-East (now HSBC) at Vellayambalam in Thiruvananthapuram. With customers shifting to online banking, the branch has become redundant with lesser transactions.
The bank’s branch at Vellayambalam wound up its operations on Wednesday. Several of its 36 employees had quit earlier, and the remaining two were transferred to its branch in Kochi.
The bank had offered its employees a severance package of Rs. 50 lakh to Rs. 1 crore.
Awe and shock
The ATM was a surprise to the city when it was set up, and people used to flock just see the currency dispensing machine. It was then rumoured that the machine would dispense money to anyone.
The curiosity was followed by protests. Trade union activists laid siege to the machine, saying it would leave bank employees jobless. Though the bank authorities explained the functioning of the ATM in a bid to defuse the protests, even those in the banking sector preferred to discard their arguments. The protests gradually fizzled away and after a while, even some of the protesters visited the ATM to withdraw money.
Though computerization in the banking sector began in 1983, Kerala took a decade more to embrace it. Among the public sector banks, SBT was the first to install an ATM towards the fag end of 1994.
Karunakaran flags off the race
The SBT’s ATM at Statue was inaugurated by K Karunakaran, who arrived late, past the auspicious hour, for the function. Just when he was to inaugurate the machine, someone reminded him that the ‘Rahu kaalam’ has begun.
An undeterred Karunakaran went ahead with the inauguration, saying the machine was marking the beginning of a race in the banking sector, and the ‘Rahu kaalam’ was the apt hour to begin the battle.
The inauspicious hour, however, did not affect the ATM. SBT later installed hundreds of ATMs across the state.
World’s first floating ATM
Kerala holds the envious record of launching the first floating ATM in the world. The machine was set up aboard a jankar, belonging to the Shipping and Inland Navigation Corporation, connecting Kochi with Vypeen. The jankar ferried some 5,000 people in 30 schedules, and the ATM catered to the passengers.
World’s first ATM
Press employee John Shepherd-Barron was a disappointed man that day. He was late to the bank and could not withdraw money. The incident left him thinking, and while taking a shower at home, he hit upon the idea of a cash disposing machine.
Barron’s idea caught the fancy of Barclays Bank’s general manager. After several rounds of talks, the bank placed an order with Barron for a cash dispensing machine.
“I told the general manager that I know the trick to dispense money if one submits the bank’s cheque to the machine,” Barron later said. The Bank of London installed his first ATM in 1967, and actor Reg Varney was the first to withdraw money from the machine.
The first ATMs employed carbon-laced cheque leaves instead of cards, and the machine, which recognizes the cheque, would ask for the secret Pin number. The four-digit Pin number, too, was Barron’s contribution.
Barron has an India connect. He was born in Meghalaya on June 23, 1925.
ATM in India
India got its first ATM in 1987, when HSBC Bank installed it in Mumbai.