IBS Journal February 2016


India Post Bank to open doors in March 2017 with Infosys Finacle


India Post Bank has been given the go- ahead to start processing payments in 2017 following a number of lengthy delays. The post office’s financial services are seen as a viable provider for India’s rural population, of which a majority do not have access to banking. 230 million Indians, however, do hold


savings accounts with the Post Office, which has 139,144 locations across rural areas of the country. Ravi Shankar Prasad, union minister for


communications and IT, announced that a March 2017 start date had been fixed for the banking arm to begin processing. He also noted Deutsche Bank and the World Bank had expressed interest in partner- ships.


Waiting times India Post has been waiting a long time for


the green light to set up its own bank. It originally planned to start offering services in March 2014 as part of an enterprise-wide transformation fuelled by Infosys’ Finacle core system. Finacle was selected by the company


following a process that began in 2010 and was charged with turning post offices across India into ‘mini banks’ catering to an average of 7,000 customers each. The project, which cost around $125.3 million, had an initial completion date of July 2014.


Stumbling blocks India Post encountered a number of stum- bling blocks, however, most notably when the country’s finance ministry opposed the banking services plan in February 2014, claiming the company did not have the necessary expertise to become a bank


proper. Ageing data – with some tables up


to 100 years old – and a worry about Post Bank customers and tellers being confused with the modern Finacle system were among other pressing concerns. The Reserve Bank of India has since


brought about the reversal of the finance ministry’s decision and come out in favour of the plans.


Pilot plans India Post has already run a number of pilot projects in Assam, Uttar, Pradesh and Maharashtra to test the capabilities of its new system. With 41% of India’s population not


using banking services, it is hoped that the 2017 go-live will encourage financial inclusion across the country.


Alex Hamilton


Intellect Design Arena grows customer base for lending software; reports $1.75m loss in Q3 results


Intellect Design Arena has onboarded a spate of customers for its Intellect debt management system (part of the Intellect Lending suite). The solution is being delivered as a


standalone component, integrating ‘seam- lessly’ with the banks’ legacy core software, according to the vendor. Among the new takers is Turkey’s


state-owned universal bank, Halkbank. Halkbank is the sixth largest bank in Tur- key in terms of assets and branch network (nearly 900 outlets nationwide). Other takers comprise Riyadh Bank in


Saudi Arabia, Gulf Bank in Kuwait and Phil- ippine National Bank in the Philippines. There are also two new Intellect debt


management software users in Egypt, both subsidiaries of Middle Eastern groups. These are National Bank of Kuwait and


10


Qatar National Bank. In the latter case, the project is a licence extension of an earlier deal with the parent company in Qatar. In all these instances, the solution is


deployed onsite. Despite the new signings, the vendor


has reported a pre-tax loss of IND 119.1 million ($1.75 million) in its Q3 results for the 2015-16 financial year. For the period ended 31st December


2015, there was some good news for its revenue – it stood at IND 5.94 trillion ($87.6 million) against IND 4.47 trillion ($65.9 mil- lion) in the same period last year. Arun Jain, chairman and MD, Intellect


Design Arena, says: ‘While we have grown significantly on a cumulative basis, the last quarter saw two deals which were to have closed being deferred to the next quarter. However, we are on track on the annual


© IBS Intelligence 2016 www.ibsintelligence.com


growth guidance as of today [25th Janu- ary 2016].’ Intellect’s CFO, S. Swaminathan, says


the company’s gross margin and the cost of sales and marketing, R&D, and general and administrative expenses ‘have been in line with our estimates’. He adds: ‘With the expected revenue


in Q4, we are looking forward to a breake- ven quarter.’ Investments in research and develop-


ment (R&D) amounted to IND 970 million ($14.3 million). The vendor has also highlighted its


delivery track record, referring to its imple- mentations as ‘delightful and reliable’. It states that ‘over 85% implementations [were delivered] ahead of schedule and in full in the last quarter’. Antony Peyton and Tanya Andreasyan


news


Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28  |  Page 29  |  Page 30  |  Page 31  |  Page 32  |  Page 33  |  Page 34  |  Page 35  |  Page 36  |  Page 37  |  Page 38  |  Page 39  |  Page 40  |  Page 41  |  Page 42  |  Page 43  |  Page 44  |  Page 45  |  Page 46  |  Page 47  |  Page 48