Trivia About Pin Number

Pin Number

The first PIN number was created in 1967.

When John Shepherd-Barron invented the first cash machine in 1967, he needed a way to protect people so that only the person in control of the checking account would have access to the cash in that account.


He came across the idea of using a Personal Identification Number that would be known by the owner of the account, but not known by anyone else. All he had to do was determine how many digits would be used for the number. He realized he could remember his six digit number assigned to him in the British Army and felt that a six digit number would be secure enough to use for the cash machine. However, his wife had problems remembering numbers with more than four digits. So he decided that with 10,000 possible number combinations that four digits would do the job.

That decision is why today more than 40 years later the four digit PIN is a standard around the world.