1981 – 2011: BEB AG

In 1981, Hans Blaser founded BEB AG in Burgdorf, with the company initially active in various areas of electronics. In 1993, BEB started to establish a business division specialising in banknote sensors. This resulted in a close partnership with Siemens Nixdorf Informationssysteme AG, part of which eventually became Wincor Nixdorf AG. The joint goal of the companies was to develop cash machines with a combined deposit and withdrawal function in order to implement a closed cash cycle (cash recycling). The first cash recycling system using a BEB banknote sensor was put into operation in January 1998 at a branch of UBS in Zurich – the first system of its kind worldwide outside of Japan.

In subsequent years, BEB experienced strong growth in both its sales and its staff numbers. While the majority of these sales were made with Wincor Nixdorf, BEB also supplied third-party customers around the world with banknote sensors.

In 2004, Wincor Nixdorf acquired BEB in full, although the business activities continued to be managed in Burgdorf with a large degree of autonomy.

2011 – 2015: CI Tech Components

In 2011, Wincor Nixdorf introduced its subsidiary BEB into a joint venture with Giesecke+Devrient, which in turn brought OEM business with cash deposit modules into the merger. Following this step, both business divisions were integrated at the Burgdorf site under the name CI Tech Components, with a new site for R&D also having opened in Dornach near Munich. The joint venture focused on the development of new and convergent platform technologies for banknote sensors and cash deposit modules.