Why Does ATM Cards Have Just a 4 Digit Pin?

We as Nigerians come across a lot of exciting, captivating and thought provoking things in our day to day activities. However, due to our busy schedule, and sometimes the thought of where we're headed at the particular period in time, across we don't really bother to look into the background of these amazing inventions. I am 100% sure that 99.9% of my readers make use of the ATM machines more than twice within the period of a week.


Majority of the time we have the need to make use of the atm, we are often saddled with the thought of how long we need to wait before making withdrawals or any other ATM enabled task due to the status of the queue. The highlighted points above are some of the reasons why many Nigerians have never bothered to look into why the ATM Card pin is only four(4) digits.

The main purpose of this post is to educate my readers on why the ATM Card pin has only four digits. Before we talk about that, however, let's skim through how the ATM machine came into existence.

The Computer Loan Machine triggered the invention of the ATM machine. The individual who took it upon himself to design the first ever Automated Teller Machine is a man called John Adrian Sheperd-Barron. Barron also developed the idea of embedding pin code into individual debit and credit cards.
Now, to the main part of the post , which is why ATM Card pin consists of only 4-digits. The inventor of the ATM machine which is John Adrian Shepherd-Barron was born to the family of Dorothy Barron, two time Wimbledon women champion, in Shillong.

Barron initially proposed a 6 digit pin, but later had to reconsider his proposal due to his wife's inability to remember a large string of digits. The reason our ATM card pin has only four digits is because of the inventor's wife's disability.

Nowadays, 4 digit pin is no longer enough to keep our funds secured, due to cyber theft. Most banks outside Nigeria are now offering a 6-digit pin code for accessing credit and debit cards. This development is a good one but it'll burden the average Nigerian banks' customer care assistants as many Nigerians are bound to forget their pins easily.