After a relatively smooth holiday debut, Europe's new currency was put to the test Wednesday amid checkout delays, ATM breakdowns and armed robberies for euro's first big shopping day.

The euro got its roughest start in Austria, where the country's 2,400 cash machines broke down because of overuse by customers trying to get new euro notes. The Austrian press agency APA said the machines stopped working at 1315 GMT (9:15 am EDT) when a central computer crashed. The breakdown was caused by the unusually high number of transactions, and the problem was fixed shortly afterwards. A number of major robberies also hit Europe's new currency as it went into circulation across most of the European Union. In Greece, a gunman stole $68,400 worth of euros from a post office savings branch, and thieves hit a rural bank and an ATM machine in Ireland. Brandishing a pistol, a man forced a cashier at the savings branch in the northern Athens suburb of Holargos to fill two bags with euro notes before fleeing on foot, police said. He also stole a small amount of drachmas, which are still legal tender until the end of February. No one was injured. In Ireland, three assailants, two of them armed with a hammer and a knife, threatened staff at a branch of Allied Irish Banks before grabbing about 2,000 euros, worth $1,800, from a till and escaping in a waiting car. Already on Monday, a German bank robber seized tens of thousands of euros hours before the midnight launch of the single currency. The cash, stored in a savings bank in the northern German town of Pinneberg, was sealed in plastic and had just been delivered by the regional central bank for public distribution. Elsewhere in Europe, confusion, angry scenes at cash registers and resignation were on the menu, although things remained relatively orderly and legal.