Beijing:
The first gold ATM will be put into service during China's National Day Holiday in Beijing.
The gold ATM made its first appearance in the Wangfujing Street, Beijing's busiest downtown area last Friday (Sept 23), attracting many curious passers-by.
"After the outbreak of intentional financial crisis, the Chinese people have become enthusiastic to purchase and invest in gold. So the traditional gold sales mode can hardly meet the demand for buying and counter purchasing gold," Zheng Ruixiang, a board director of Beijing Gongmei Group.
The gold ATM is now under testing and installation, and will be put into formal operation during the National Day Holiday. Updated every ten minutes, it will offer the real time quote, with a handling charge of 10 yuan per gram, which is basically the same with that in the golden market, according to an ATM worker.
"The ATM machine can provide customers with different sizes of gold bars and a machine can hold a maximum of 200 kilograms of gold. The number of customers using gold ATMs may vary a lot in different locations, and we'll load the ATMs with different volumes accordingly," said Zheng Ruixiang, board director of Beijing Gongmei Group.
Calculated by the current gold price, an ATM loaded with 200 kilograms of gold bars will be worth 70 million yuan. Unlike ordinary ATMs set up randomly by street, such an expensive machine can only be installed in high-end venues such as banks, five-star hotels and private clubs.