London: The world's first ATM marked its 50th anniversary on Tuesday which had its inception on June 27, 1967 unveiled by Barclays at their Enfield branch in north London. The Barclays cashpoint in Enfield has been given a gold makeover, and a roped-off red carpet approach to celebrate the anniversary.

The automated teller machine (ATM) marked its 50th anniversary on Tuesday, with a British bank decorating the site of the world's first cashpoint in gold to mark the occasion. The original cash machine was the brainchild of John Shepherd-Barron, who was commissioned by the bank to create six cash dispensers. They were based on vending machines.

The first person to use the inaugural ATM was actor Reg Varney, the star of a popular British TV comedy called On The Buses, brought in to show how easy it was to use.

The first person to use the inaugural ATM was actor Reg Varney, the star of a popular British TV comedy called On The Buses, brought in to show how easy it was to use.

The world's most southerly ATM is at the McMurdo Station research base on Antarctica, while the highest is at 4,693 metres in Pakistan's Khunjerab Pass near the Chinese border. There is an ATM inside the Forbidden City in Beijing, mobile ATMs on trucks, one on a golf buggy in the US state of Georgia and one in a Dubai hotel that dispenses gold bars.

Though other technologies such as mobile and online banking have come into play, the number of cash machines is expected to grow, with China and India driving the expansion. The Payments UK trade association recently predicted that the rapid growth in the use of contactless cards means cash will be overtaken as Britain's most frequently-used payment method by the end of next year.