Why ATM's pin have 4 digits unlike 6-digit OTPs: effect of love!

Most of us are very familiar with ATMs and their pin, and if you are, give me conformation by typing down your ATM pin in the comment section. :)

We use ATMs regularly and OTP (one-time-password) even more frequently. Generally speaking, the format of the ATM pin consists of 4 digits, whereas OTPs have a 6-digit number.

However, this is not a rule of thumb, many international banks have ATM pin of 6 digits and at the same time, we sometimes receive OTPs which only have 4 digits. But these things are very less frequent.

Have you ever thought of it? And if not, I must bet that you’ll want to know more about it after reading the above's explanation and of course about the angle of love included with it.

So here we go, OTPs are created for authentication and it started with 4 digits. 6-digit OTP which we use currently is an upgraded version of it. This transformation took place due to 2 main reasons:

1. OTPs have some time window anywhere between 5 to 10 minutes. With the help of a 4-digit number, we were only able to generate 10,000 different numeric values, which is not enough due to higher traffic on websites. We switched to 6-digit OTPs to generate a greater number of combinations.

2. 6 digits are relatively tough to crack or even remember with a glance into someone's system. The security system improved drastically with this adaptation.

Now we move to the interesting part, I know many of you are here just to read about the effect of love on all these. Well, Shepherd Barron, inventor of ATM pin came up with a 6-digit pin in the 1960s.

He talked to his wife Caroline, before proposing that idea. His wife, who was comfortable in remembering 4 digits only, advised Mr. Barron to reduce the size of the pin. Hence, most of the banks still use a 4-digit pin.

Things we do for someone else’s love!!

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