Published March 5, 2021, 3:11 PM Philippine Seven Corporation (PSC), the exclusive licensor of 7-Eleven in the Philippines, in alliance with Pito AxM Platform, Inc. (PAPI), a Philippine subsidiary of Seven Bank, Ltd. of Japan (Seven Bank), began installing cash recycling ATMs which accept cash deposits via high-speed bill readers and then dispense those same bills for withdrawals, in select 7-Eleven stores in Metro Manila this February. In a statement, the company said that 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. “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. Seven Bank’s model of allowing several banks to share the ATMs so that more customers could use them without fees, and then installing them in a safe and convenient location like our stores made tremendous sense for us, which is why we have been wooing them for several years now. 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”, said Jose Victor Paterno, CEO of Philippine Seven Corporation.