7-Eleven branches hosting more ATMs

MANILA, Philippines — Philippine Seven Corp., the operator of 7-Eleven stores in the Philippines, has partnered with Japan-based financial institution Seven Bank Ltd. to widen the  network of automated teller machines in its stores.

The company signed the agreement with PITO AxM Platform Inc. (PAPI), the local subsidiary of Seven Bank.

Under the agreement, cash recycling machines will be deployed in 7-Eleven stores in the Philippines to provide customers with access to ATM services. The deployment will commence in June and will be completed to cover all stores in the coming years.

The ATMs have a cash recycling function that enables machines to dispense banknotes deposited by the 7-Eleven stores and customers of PAPI partner banks. All ATM cardholders can benefit from these ATMs 24-hours a day, seven days a week.

Seven Bank is a subsidiary of Seven & I Holdings, the parent company of 7-Eleven Japan. The company, which has been operating since 2001 specializes in providing ATMs in convenient locations across Japan such as 7-Eleven convenience stores, airports and train stations.

PSC president and chief executive officer Jose Victor Paterno said both PSC and Seven Bank believe in the potential for sustainable financial inclusion presented by recycling ATMs in 7-Eleven stores across the country.

“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. 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 six million downloads of our Cliqq app,” Paterno said.

In 2019, Seven Bank surpassed 25,000 ATMs in its home country. 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.

With the steady growth of the Philippine economy, the number of bank accounts and the volume of financial transactions have also been increasing.

PSC is the largest convenience store chain operator in the country with 2,864 stores nationwide as of the end of 2019. At present, it has withdrawal-only ATMs in some of its stores.