Philippine Seven Corp., the owner of the master franchise of 7-Eleven convenience stores in the country, said it has started the installation of its white automated teller machines (ATM) in select stores.
The company said the ATMs are capable of both accepting cash deposits and dispensing bills.
The convenience store operator said it began installing the white ATMs in some of its stores since last month. The said project is carried out by Pito AxM Platform Inc. (PAPI), the local unit of Seven Bank Ltd. of Japan.
More than 30 ATMs are operational to date and a total of 320 units will be live by June. This partnership shall constitute the largest cash-recycling ATM network in the country, the company said.
“Cash-recycling ATMs are standard in Japan, because it reduces the need to deliver cash and provides a reliable and convenient experience for receiving deposits. There are few of them in the Philippines, because they are considerably more expensive than withdrawal-only ATMs,” Jose Victor Paterno, Philippine Seven CEO, said.
Seven Bank’s white ATMs allow several banks to share the machines so that more customers could use the ATMs without fees.
Paterno said the model “made sense” for the company and it has been wooing the Japan bank for several years now but it took time discussing the idea with the local banks.
The local operator of the ATM has partnered with BDO Unibank Inc., whose account holders can withdraw and perform balance inquiries free of charge from the ATMs in 7-Eleven stores and will soon be able to use the deposit function that is currently limited to 7-Eleven store cash only.
The 7-Eleven stores itself can use the ATMs themselves by depositing their sales money into the machine instead of hoarding the cash in stores, which can attract robbers.
“We also have several stores in small towns without bank branches or even ATMs, so this would both reduce our cash handling costs, which have increased as our payments business has grown, and reduce the need for the community to travel to access an ATM at the same time. If the model proves financially viable for both ourselves and Seven Bank, we would like to see these machines in all stores very soon,” Paterno said.
Other bank account holders through BancNet can also do withdrawal and balance inquiry transactions subject to the ATM fees charged by their issuing banks.
“We have seen the increased demand for ATM access in the Philippines, especially under the current environment. By installing ATMs in 7-Eleven stores, we hope to make access to cash more convenient for numerous Filipinos and play our part in increasing financial inclusion,” Tsuneo Nagashima, president and director of PAPI, said.
Seven Bank established PAPI in April 2019 to promote its ATM business in the country, but it was only in February last year that it was able to forge an agreement with Philippine Seven, which has about 2,978 stores in the Philippines at the end of 2020.
Seven Bank is the world’s largest operator of ATMs, surpassing 25,000 machines in its home country alone.
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