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Infosys consolidates banking suite under Finacle

K Girprakash in Bangalore

The banking division of Infosys Technologies, the country's second largest software exporter, has consolidated all its products under one brand and phased out one product.

"We have stepped up our focus on brand building and one of the key initiatives for the unit in this context has been the consolidation of brands under the umbrella brand of Finacle," Girish G Vaidya, senior vice-president and head of banking unit, said.

"This will ensure a greater brand recall for customers and help us to create a truly powerful, global brand," Vaidya said. He, however, ruled out hiving off the unit into a subsidiary.

Vaidya said as the unit's products had a good presence in India, South Asia and Africa, it has decided to make a foray into the US, Latin America and Europe.

Vaidya said BankAway (retail), the consumer internet banking solution, has been rebranded as Finacle eChannels, and BankAway (corporate), the corporate internet banking, has been rebranded as Finacle eCorporate and PayAway, the electronic bill presentment and payment solution has become a module of Finacle eChannels, while the brand PayAway does not exist anymore.

Vaidya said in the domestic market, the Finacle suite of products accounts for 65 per cent of the market and has been deployed in 62 banks across 19 countries, including India. He said the banking business unit has contributed around Rs 104 crore (Rs 1.04 billion) in revenues for 2001-02, which is around 4 per cent of its total revenues for the last financial year.

The banking unit has around 500 employees but Vaidya refused to share the company's plan on further recruitment.

He said 12 of the 16 Indian banks have chosen their products in the last 24 months. He said ABN Amro, a multinational bank was their customer in India and in other countries as well.

Vaidya said the acquisition of IQ Financials' treasury division is strategic as it gives the unit some blue-chip clientele in Europe and US, which are using the product.

Vaidya said India will continue to be a major market for Infosys.

"One of the markets witnessing significant action for banking products is India and there is a considerable potential with a low penetration of the use of centralised banking software platforms," he said.

Quoting analysts, Vaidya said in the west, the wave to merge will see banks focusing on shedding the baggage of disparate silos-based proprietary legacy systems and will see them embracing integrated, open system as the chosen banking technology platform and here is where Infosys sees an opportunity.

During 2001-02, Infosys posted a 28.49 per cent increase in net profit to Rs 807.96 crore (Rs 8.08 billion) compared with Rs 628.81 crore (Rs 6.29 billion) last year on a net sales of Rs 2,603.59 crore (Rs 26.04 billion) compared with Rs 1,900.56 crore (Rs 19.01 billion) last year, an increase of around 37 per cent.

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