News

Crane Merchandising Systems offers integrated bill validation

April 21, 2014

Crane Merchandising Systems (CMS) is offering its vending machines with integrated bill validators that it acquired when its parent Crane Co bought MEI in December 2013.

Crane Merchandising Systems' Merchant Media and BevMax Media vending machines can now be ordered with integrated MEI VN2700 CashFlow bill validators, reports VendingMarketwatch.com. The addition of the MEI validator gives customers another option for customizing their Media machines to fit their specific needs, CMS says.

Crane Co used its acquisition of MEI to launch Crane Payment Innovation (CPI) in February 2014. Combining MEI with the existing Crane Payment Solutions business, CPI provides cash management products for the gaming, financial, retail, transport and vending markets. "We're building a new, integrated business that will combine the strengths of MEI and Crane Payment Solutions," Mike Hayes, CPI's president, said in a statement.

Crane Co, CMS and CPI have announced their strategy for a combined Vending Management Systems (VMS) platform that will encompass the best of the MEI EASITRAX Core and Crane VendMAX software platforms, which together have nearly 1 million vending machines under management combined.The unified platform will use VendMAX as its base platform and add on features from the EASITRAX platform.

All existing EASITRAX customers wishing to migrate to the VendMAX platform will have the option to transition, with the license fee being waived, CMS says. However, CPI will maintain support for the EASITRAX product in the market for a minimum of five years for customers who do not move to VendMAX.