Seven Bank to offer 12 languages at ATMs for overseas-issued cards

Seven Bank is set to triple the number of languages available at its ATMs for foreign issued cards, in a nod to the growing number of people visiting in Japan.

The bank, a unit of major retailer Seven & I Holdings, said Tuesday that offering 12 languages instead of the current four would provide better convenience for foreign cash and credit card holders.

Seven Bank has some 21,000 ATMs nationwide, most of which are in its 7-Eleven convenience stores and supermarkets.

The number of ATM transactions with cards issued overseas topped 4 million in the current fiscal year ending this month.

In addition to the four languages currently used by the ATMs — English, Korean, a simplified Chinese and Portuguese — the eight languages to be introduced are traditional Chinese, Thai, Malaysian, Indonesian, Vietnamese, French, German and Japanese, according to Seven Bank.