When did the first drive-through ATM opened in China?

In 2007, Citibank opened China’s first drive-through automated teller machine (ATM) at the Upper East Side Central Plaza in Beijing. In December 2006, five years after joining the World Trade Organization, China opened its retail banking sector to foreign competition. Under the new banking regulations Citibank became one of four foreign banks (along with HSBC, Standard Chartered and Bank of East Asia) approved to provide banking services in China using Chinese currency. By early December 2007, Citibank had opened 70 regular ATMs across the Chinese mainland.

Initially, the Citibank drive-through ATM that opened in Beijing in August 2007 was available only to holders of bank cards issued outside of China. Foreign banks were not allowed to issue their own cards in China. Still, other banks soon hopped on the drive-through banking bandwagon in China, including the China Construction Bank, which opened the first drive-through ATM in the southern Chinese city of Guangzhou in May 2008.