KEBA Brand Guidelines: The 1968 Linz Electronics Workshop Behind KePlus Cash Recyclers

Two computer technicians from the Voest steelworks.

KEBA began in Linz in 1968. The Oberösterreichische Nachrichten reported in 2016 that Gunther Krippner, a maintenance technician, started it that year as a one-man business in a room of about 30 square metres, and that Karl Kletzmaier, who had worked with him in the computer centre of the Voest steelworks, joined in 1970. ORF Upper Austria reported in 2007 that the pair began with a first workshop in a cellar.

The early firm was called Elektronikbau Krippner & Kletzmaier. By 1973, the Oberösterreichische Nachrichten says, it had seven people and worked on measurement, control and data-processing systems, with Voest, the German Bundeswehr, Siemens and the ski maker Kneissl among its first important customers; a large order for parcel-distribution equipment, won against Siemens, was an early breakthrough in Kletzmaier’s account. The same paper calls the name KEBA an invented word, while noting that it could be read as an abbreviation of the founders’ names.

Growth came with a change of approach. From 1985, the Oberösterreichische Nachrichten reported, the company concentrated on series production; English Wikipedia says that from 1984 it focused on industrial, banking and sawmill automation. A German subsidiary followed in 1990 and a US company in 1998, and in 1999 the business became a stock corporation, KEBA AG.

The headquarters stayed in Linz. KEBA moved into a new head office there in 2003, Wikipedia says, and the company said in 2018 that its group was based in the Urfahr district of the city, with a second production site in the Linz industrial area since 2013. That year the Linz Chamber of Commerce, the city and the state of Upper Austria named it Linz Company of the Year in the leading-companies category, the company announced.

Cash recyclers, terminals and lobby access.

Banking machines have been part of KEBA for decades. ORF Upper Austria described it in 2007 as a maker of machines for banks and lottery companies as well as industrial controls, and in 2025 chief executive Christoph Knogler told the broadcaster that the company had worked in banking automation for thirty years. Its products for banks are sold under the KePlus name.

The company’s own pages describe the range. It makes cash recyclers, machines that take in banknotes and pay them out again, in the KePlus F10 and FT10 models, and says it introduced its evo series in 2018; the newer KePlus F20 and FT20 recyclers, it says, can recycle up to four banknote denominations. Alongside them come the KePlus D10 terminal for cashless account services, the KeBin access systems for bank foyers, and an assistant called KeBob. KEBA describes itself as a European manufacturer and calls itself a pioneer in cash recycling; those are its own descriptions.

Banking sits inside a wider group. English and German Wikipedia list industrial controls and handheld operator terminals for machines and robots, KePol parcel machines, lottery terminals, charging stations for electric vehicles and controls for heat pumps and biomass heating. In ORF Upper Austria’s report of June 2024, the company grouped banking, parcel and public-service machines as “Handover Automation,” and said continuing demand for banking automation and a European lottery project had helped that division while industrial and energy work had weakened. It also said it was building artificial intelligence into bank foyer machines and citizen-service terminals in Germany.

Acquisitions widened the group. Wikipedia lists a joint venture in Beijing with the China Banknote Printing and Minting Corporation in 2007, a majority stake in the Dutch automation firm Delem in 2013, the self-service maker KEMAS of Oberlungwitz, Germany, in 2016, and the drive makers LTI Motion and Heinz Fiege at the end of 2018. In April 2025 ORF Upper Austria reported that KEBA was taking over the Linz artificial-intelligence firm 7lytix, founded in 2016, through that company’s restructuring proceedings.

Some of its design work has been recognised. German Wikipedia lists a Red Dot product design award in 2018 and a German Design Award special mention in 2019 for the KeMes angle-measuring device, and English Wikipedia lists a 2018 iF product design award for the same tool and a 2013 Postal Technology Award for its KePol parcel lockers.

Cash handling and its makers.

Cash-handling makers sell machines that most people meet without ever choosing them. Their products appear in bank lobbies and in the walls of branches, behind teller counters as cash recyclers, beside supermarket tills as coin counters, and in the printing halls where banknotes are made. The maker’s name is often a small plate on a large machine, so the brand does much of its work in brochures, trade stands and service contracts rather than on the street.

The machines themselves come in families. NCR’s first serious ATM generation, the 5070 of 1983, was developed at its Dundee plant in Scotland and came in lobby and through-the-wall versions, with modules that could be taken out for repair or refilling, according to English Wikipedia. That modular build lends itself to cutaway diagrams, which trace the path a note takes through a machine from cassette to dispenser.

Trade fairs and bank technology conferences are where new machines are shown. Diebold demonstrated a cash machine prototype at the American Bankers Association’s annual meeting in 1966, and in October 2015 showed two ATM concepts at the Money20/20 show in Las Vegas, English Wikipedia says. The ATM Industry Association gives its own awards, which makers list on their websites.

Ownership in this sector changes often. Diebold took over Germany’s Wincor Nixdorf in 2016, NCR split off its ATM business as NCR Atleos in 2023, and in February 2026 the cash carrier Brink’s agreed to acquire NCR Atleos, ATM Marketplace reported. This guide sets out what can be checked about each brand — who founded it, who owns it and where its machines are made — and marks clearly what rests on the company’s own word.

Founder-owned, with the “Ke” prefix on every range.

KEBA has stayed in private hands. In August 2007 ORF Upper Austria reported a new ownership structure in which Krippner withdrew entirely and Kletzmaier partly, with his family keeping a majority of the shares and members of the management board acquiring stakes. When the company announced its Linz award in 2018, it described Kletzmaier as co-founder, chairman of the supervisory board and majority owner. English and German Wikipedia describe KEBA Group AG as privately owned.

The management has changed over time. Gerhard Luftensteiner, long the chief executive, became chairman of the supervisory board in June 2024, ORF Upper Austria reported, leaving Christoph Knogler as chief executive and Andreas Schoberleitner as finance director. The same report said that a little over half of the group’s staff worked in Austria and about a third in Germany.

The brand has a naming habit. Many of its ranges begin with the same two letters taken from the company name: KePlus for banking, KePol for parcels, KeBin for access, KeContact for charging, KeMes for measuring and KeBob for the assistant. German Wikipedia gives the capitalised KEBA as the company’s own spelling, and the press often writes Keba. KEBA says it develops and manufactures its self-service systems itself, and its 2018 announcement placed its second production site in the Linz industrial area.

For a design guide, KEBA shows how a founder-owned engineering firm can carry one prefix across machines for banks, factories and parcel stations. Compare Diebold Nixdorf, another maker of cash recyclers for European bank branches, and NCR Atleos, the ATM business separated from NCR. For this guide we use a Danube blue, a foyer grey and a signal orange with an industrial grotesque sans, an unofficial interpretation; no product or logo is reproduced.

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