On September 20 STMicroelectronics announced the availability of its POS reference design that integrates the card payment and fiscal cash register on a single board. The all-in-one system addresses the requirement of China’s central government that all POS machines across the country be equipped with a fiscal cash register, or fiscal memory, which records all sales transactions at the POS machine for tax purposes.

Nautilus Hyosung recently revealed that it has been selected as an officially certified enterprise to supply ATMs to the China Postal Savings Bank. Approximately 3,000 Model 5050 machines will be exported to China this year.

Diebold is cooperating with Sinopec and local commercial banks to deploy ATMs in Sinopec’s fuel stations in Beijing. Sinopec is China’s largest oil refining and petrochemical company and is an official sponsor for the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games.

Esprit Financial Group has signed a Memorandum of Understanding with Hongkong-based Money Check International Limited to deploy ATMs in mainland China on a Joint Venture basis. The parties will be working together to build a business case and business model to support their plan.

On August 1 Citibank China opened its first drive-through ATM in Beijing. This is the first of its kind opened by a bank in China. Currently Citibank has a total of 95 ATMs in China including both in-branch and offsite.

China Everbright Bank (CEB) has completed the deployment of Kalignite multivendor automated teller machine (ATM) software across its entire estate. The project took just eight months from start to finish and was completely rolled out by November, 2006.

On June 19, 2007 Euronet Worldwide announced it has expanded its ATM outsourcing agreement with China Postal Savings Bank for 721 new ATMs. Euronet is already managing 90 ATMs for the Bank via its operations center in Beijing. New ATMs will be deployed in Beijing, Shanghai and the Guangdong province. Euronet China expects to complete the deployment within the next 12 to 18 months.

VeriFone Holdings says it has been selected as the sole provider of electronic payment systems by the China Postal Savings Bank. VeriFone will supply the Vx 510, with dual dial and IP connectivity, and the wireless NURIT 8000 with GPRS connectivity.

The ATM Industry Association (ATMIA) is hosting its third “ATMs in Asia” conference in Beijing with the main theme of preparing China’s ATMs for the millions of additional ATM transactions expected in the City during the Olympics.

DBS Bank (Singapore) and China Unionpay have jointly launched an ATM service that allows CUP cardholders to withdraw funds and to check balances via more than 880 DBS ATMs. This strategic collaboration extends the existing CUP - DBS Hong Kong partnership into a regional level, and further reinforces DBS’ regional focus and commitment to develop its retail banking business in China.