Which U.S. bank installed the first ATM in the United States in 1969?

Chemical Bank installed the first ATM in the United States in 1969.

The machine was installed on September 2, 1969, at Chemical Bank’s branch in Rockville Centre, New York. It was developed by Docutel, a Dallas-based company, with Donald Wetzel playing a leading role in its design. Chemical initially called the machine a Docuteller, and an advertisement promoted the idea that the bank would “never close again.”

The early device was much more limited than a modern ATM. Customers used a specially coded card and could withdraw a fixed amount of cash. It did not offer today’s broad menu of deposits, transfers, balance checks, and account services. Even so, the installation helped demonstrate that customers would use automated banking machines.

Chemical Bank was a major New York institution founded in 1824. It later acquired Chase Manhattan in 1996 and adopted the Chase name, becoming part of the corporate lineage of today’s JPMorgan Chase. Chemical’s machine was the first U.S. ATM, not the first ATM anywhere: earlier automated cash machines had appeared in Europe.