BEIJING - China's largest bank, Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC), has selected NCR Corporation's (NYSE:NCR) APTRA Edge multivendor software application to run on its network of more than 13,000 ATMs.
According to a news release, the deal is the first of its kind in China, marking a milestone in transitioning ATMs from the OS/2 platform to Microsoft Windows. Under the agreement, APTRA Edge will run on different brands of CEN/XFS-compliant machines in the bank's network.
"This is a significant move in China. The decision to deploy APTRA Edge will enable the introduction of many new services to the bank's customers. It is the first major adoption of multivendor software in China," said CK Chan, general manager of NCR's Financial Solutions division in China and Hong Kong, in the release.
In conjunction with the software contract, ICBC has signed a separate agreement to buy more ATMs from NCR as it continues to expand and modernize its ATM network.
In a separate deal, China Construction Bank (CCB) signed a new contract with NCR, worth $17 million, for the supply of ATM hardware and software. NCR secured more than $28 million worth of ATM business from CCB in 2002.
Under the new deal NCR will deploy its Personas 77, Personas 84 and Personas 86 ATMs -- which are manufactured at NCR's factory in Beijing -- across CCB's branches in China by the end of this year.
The bank has also licensed NCR's encrypting pin pad (EPP) module which supports both Triple DES and global ISO standards. "The EPP, certified to be fully compliant with international security industry standards mandated by MasterCard and Visa, enables CCB to effectively service international bank card users," said Chan in a news release.
