Barclays installed the world's first automatic teller machine for public use in London in 1967.
The machine was unveiled at a Barclays branch in Enfield on 27 June 1967. It was developed by John Shepherd-Barron and De La Rue Instruments, and actor Reg Varney made the first public withdrawal. Customers used specially issued paper vouchers containing a radioactive carbon-14 marker rather than the plastic bank cards familiar today.
The early machine dispensed a fixed amount of cash, and the transaction did not involve an electronic connection to a customer's account. Barclays called the machine a cash dispenser, but it became the model for the automated teller machines that spread internationally.
A common mix-up is to credit later card-based systems with being the first ATM. Other inventors and banks developed related cash machines around the same period, including systems in Sweden and the United States. Barclays' Enfield installation is generally recognized as the first ATM in public service.