NCR Malaysia Sdn Bhd, a wholly-owned subsidiary of NCR Worldwide and the dominant automated teller machine (ATM) provider in Malaysia, will move its services to chip-based ATM cards by next year.

NCR Malaysia country manager for financial solutions division, C. Arulselvam, said the move to chip-based ATM card would signify one of the biggest projects handled by NCR in Asia-Pacific.

For the project, over 2,000 ATMs needed to be upgraded and a further 1,000 new machines would be introduced by Dec 31, he told a media conference in Kuala Lumpur yesterday.

With the government's strong support in the usage of the smartcard, he said, by the year 2003, Malaysians should be carrying a chip-based smartcard which would also include the ATM, debit and credit card functions.

Currently in smartcard, he said, NCR provided the ATM application for the Touch n' Go Smart Card for Bumiputra-Commerce Bank Bhd (BCB).NCR also provides the Payment Multi-Purpose Card (PMPC) for Maybank, BCB, RHB, Public Bank, Bank Muamalat and Affin Bank, while for the ATM applications for the Government Multi-Purpose Card (GMPC), the company holds a partnership with BCB and the National Registration Department, he said. "NCR has been enjoying a close working relationship with the majority of local and foreign banks in Malaysia," said Arulselvam.

He added that about 80% of all new installations were the Personas 70 model, an indoor through-the-wall model."The reliance on cash also explains the popularity of automated intelligent deposit.

The NCR Persona 73 and later Persona 73e bunched note acceptors have been increasingly becoming acceptable to consumers," he said. Arulselvam added that across Malaysia, deposit-function devices made up about 10% of the total ATM machine in the country.

He noted that the cash deposit machine were aggressively been used by Maybank and been acceptable to consumers. "We would introduce a high capacity cash deposit machine which has the capacity to accept 8,000 cash notes, currently the cash deposit machine can only accept 2,000 cash notes," he said. - Bernama