7-Eleven Philippines to have ‘cash-recycling’ ATMs starting June

Stores of 7-Eleven in the Philippines are set to have "cash-recycling" automated teller machines (ATMs) by June, enabling clients to conduct real-time cash deposits and withdrawals.

Philippine Seven Corporation, the exclusive franchise holder of 7-Eleven in the country, inked an agreement with PITO AxM Platform Inc. (PAPI), the local and wholly-owned subsidiary of Japan's Seven Bank Ltd.

Under the agreement, cash-recycling ATMs will be deployed in 7-Eleven stores across the country, expected to be in all stores over the next few years.

"Among the features of the ATMs is a cash recycling function that enables the machines to dispense banknotes deposited by the 7-Eleven stores and customers of PAPI partner banks," PSC said in a regulatory filing.

"All ATM cardholders can benefit from these ATMs 24 hours a day, seven days a week," it added.

As of end-2019, PSC had a total of 2,864 stores across the Philippines, while Seven Bank had over 25,000 ATMs in its home country.

Seven Bank is a subsidiary of Seven & I Holdings Co. Ltd., the parent company of 7-Eleven Japan, and has been operating since 2001.

"Through PAPI and its partnership with PSC, the Japanese financial institution will be able to bring its range of ATM solutions to the fast-growing Philippine market, its first rollout of recycling ATMs outside Japan," said PSC.

Plans to put up ATMs in Philippine 7-Eleven outlets were announced by PSC president and CEO Jose Victor Paterno as early as July last year.

"There has never been a better time to formalize this collaboration than today, as a growing and increasingly digitized economy provide demand for digitizing cash, as the rapid growth in our Cliqq payments business has shown," he said.

"The payments we take in initially provide a steady supply of cash for ATM customers to withdraw, and we look forward to building other services atop the combined infrastructure of nearly 3,000 stores, recycling ATMs, and 6 million downloads of our Cliqq app," elaborated Paterno. — BM, GMA News