“South American market was our fastest-growing segment globally in 2011”

What are you showing here in FADJA?
We are very excited to show our new bill acceptor SC Advance, which takes the same security, acceptance, reliability as our Cashflow model that we had, and it is expanded,  bigger and stronger; better basically. What we guaranteed our customers that have invested in MEI previously is that we weren’ t going to redesign the entire footprint. So we kept the footprint the same. It’s a swap of our bill acceptor heads which is only necessary to upgrade, but bill acceptors can stay at the casino floor at the same time and work together. You don’t need to upgrade your entire floor at once. You can order new games with the Advance and then still have older games with Cashflow. 

A lot of customers are still evaluating if they should take an extra step up, upgrading to the Advanced, we’ve seen that at the retail environment where it is already approved. It’s now being tested for gaming approvals: GLI, BMM. We expect to start shipping next month, but it has already been in the retail environment, obviously where we don’t need to have approvals, for the last three months, and it is performing even better than we have imagined. It is 35% faster, improved acceptance, it has proactive security by utilizing transmissive sensors to see all the way through notes in multiple wavelengths, and it has more memory, allowing more notes to be recognized in a specific release of firmware. You can have multiple currencies -dollars, Argentine pesos or Colombian pesos- you can have more than one currency on the acceptor.

Which was the feedback from visitors at the show?
It’s been terrific. And the show’s been fantastic. The response we had from MEI brand shows that FADJA is growing, specifically in Colombia but generally in South America. Countries like Argentina, Peru, Chile, are growing, so people now know the MEI brand, and it’s really fun to see the excitement and the growth on the market for us.

How important is this market for the company?
It is very important. In 2011 the South American market was our fastest-growing segment globally, and in Colombia in the last couple of years it involves retail, vending, transportation. This is the same bill acceptor that is currently running the Subway system in Medellin, so we are already here in the retail, vending and transportation spaces. Now we are seeing a growth in gaming in Colombia, and again the South American market is the fastest growing market and we don’t see a slowdown for the next few years. So it is very important for us.

Which is your next show?
Our next gaming show is SAGSE Buenos Aires in October, there is another Southern Gaming in the US, and another Canadian show that is coming up; we exhibit in every gaming show globally, so it is a non-stop.

And how has been this FADJA edition for your company?
It has been beyond my expectations, due to the booth traffic and the quality of attendees. The decision-makers that are coming to the show is something you don’t see at a lot of other gaming shows.  You see a lot of people from different apartments but the decision-makers who choose the bill acceptors, who operate the slot floors, are here at the show and that’s been fantastic.