"Drive-up banking services (often called "auto tellers" are
commonplace today. Almost every town in America boasts at least one bank with a
teller's window in an exterior wall. Here, in the comfort of your car, you can
cash a check, make a deposit, or transact some other financial business.
Although the first drive-in bank opened in 1937, a similar
idea originated much earlier. Almost 75 years ago, one enterprising businessman
/ inventor thought that such a service would be of great benefit to the
populace. His plan was slightly different from today's method, however – instead
of you driving up the bank, he felt that the bank should drive up to you."
There's quite possibly a fascinating treatise to be written on the
implications of a mobile banking facility: the use of technology, in
this case the automobile, to overcome a societal need; or perhaps the
fluidity and expansion of commerce in the early decades of the 20th
Century. However, these do nothing to make the idea of a bank on wheels
less stupid, especially in an age when vehicles were notoriously
unreliable.
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