Brazil's Caixa Economica Federal (CEF) has contracted with US ATM manufacturer Diebold for the supply of 9600 cash machines.
The ATM 4500 units, which are designed specifically for the Brazillian market, will be integrated with Caxia's existing fleet of 19,000 machines at branches throughout the country.
Diebold says the machines will be powered by its basic ATM platform and feature biometric identification technology. The unit also include security features sucj as anti-skimming technology with monitoring sensors for dip card reader, keyboard and LCD display, as well as electronic access control to open the upper cabinet door of the ATMs.
Delfino Natal de Souza, director of market relations, Caixa, says: "This partnership with Diebold is an important aspect of a well-planned strategy to grow our fleet to increase customer satisfaction and to continually provide new features and functionality as they become available."
The big contract win will be welcome news for Diebold which said in February that it would axe 800 jobs - five per cent of its global workforce - following a disappointing 2007 and gloomy forecasts for the coming year.
Last month the firm disclosed plans to eliminate $100 million in costs by shutting down two of its four global Opteva ATM manufacturing facilities and restructuring its supply chain and distribution network. The move was in addition to an ongoing, $100 million cost-reduction programme that Diebold introduced in January 2006.
In March the vendor's board of directors "unanimously rejected" an unsolicited cash takeover bid, worth around $3 billion, from US conglomerate United Technologies Corporation (UTC).