Information Control System (CICS) was first developed in conjunction with Michigan Bell in 1966. Ben Riggins was an IBM systems engineer at Virginia Electric Power Co. when he came up with the idea for the online system.

CICS was originally developed in the United States out of the IBM Development Center in Des Plaines, Illinois, beginning in 1966 to address requirements from the public utility industry. The first CICS product was announced in 1968,