MEI was spun off to private investment interests in July 2006.
The firm began operations in Great Britain in 1965 and expanded to the United States in 1967.
[2] As of 2011, the company operated in over one hundred countries and processed over two billion transactions per week.
[3] It has had a co-educational relationship with the Mechanical Engineering department of the Imperial College, London.
This led to the widespread integration of smart card technology in vending machines.