SBI and additional Indian takers


From an international perspective, an important deal was signed in mid-2004 when SBI opted to deploy Finacle across its non-Indian operations. SBI chairman, AK Purwar, announced that the bank had earmarked US$35 million for deploying Finacle core banking, e-banking and treasury solutions across its operations in 28 countries. This meant that Finacle, at one fell-swoop, would be tailored for these countries. Hewlett-Packard won the separate selection to provide the


infrastructure. There were initially three global data centres for SBI, comprising HP’s data centre in Florida for North America (US, Canada and Bahamas) and another in Swindon in the UK for Europe (including the bank’s operations in the UK, France, Germany, Belgium and Russia), plus the bank’s own centre in Mumbai for the rest of the world (including Bahrain, Singapore, Hong Kong, Japan, Sri Lanka, Australia, South Africa and Nigeria). The deal raised many eyebrows in the industry because, as mentioned, the bank was busy installing FNS’s Bancs as part of its huge domestic project headed by TCS. Finacle and Flexcube made it to the shortlist for the international deal. Sanat Rao, Infosys’ product strategy management head for banking, said the ability of Infosys to meet the bank’s aggressive timeframe was a key reason for the decision.


With this implementation, SBI wanted to move to a standard platform to replace a number of disparate systems, including a fair few sites for Misys’ Kindle-derived Bankmaster. Purwar said that Finacle would support the bank’s strategy to increase its offering across the globe. SBI’s small operation in Oman was the first to go live, relatively quickly, with this to be followed by two larger phases, with a first batch of cut-overs scheduled for December and the rest in April of the following year. In fact, some media reports in the Indian press at around the time of the deal suggested that SBI was eyeing an acquisition in the US, so it looked as though there might be an expansion of the roll-out. In the end, SBI made three acquisitions during 2005 comprising Indian Ocean International Bank in Mauritius, Giro Commercial Bank in Kenya, and 76 per cent of Bank IndoMonex in Indonesia. At the end of 2005, Fernandes said that Infosys was ‘in the thick of it’ with regards the SBI roll-outs, with a number of sites live, one or two deferred due to internal reasons within the bank, and most of the rest due to go live within the next couple of months. SBI in Indonesia commenced its implementation of Finacle in 2011, with a solution from local vendor, Sigma, to be replaced.


Other deals for Finacle followed in India. Vijaya Bank went 196


the Finacle route around the same time as the IDBI deal. The bank aimed to roll out Finacle to 360 branches by the end of 2005. As of September 2004, 19 branches had gone live. Also at around this time, one of the longest running Indian core banking evaluations came to an end, with Bank of Baroda signing for Finacle. For the initial roll-out, a pilot was planned to encompass 22 branches, with the bank then seeking to accelerate its roll-out in the second and third years, with 400- 500 branches to be moved across in each. In parallel, the bank planned to add internet and mobile banking. Around May 2004, the bank selected Fidelity’s AllProfits system for its international operations. However, the bank’s ultimate aim was to have a single core banking system for domestic and international, so that AllProfits would eventually be replaced by Finacle. There was then a twist at Bank of Punjab. The bank was


given the regulatory go-ahead in the second half of 2005 to merge with Centurion Bank, to create Centurion Bank of Punjab. Centurion Bank had been a user of Misys’ Equation since arriving on the Indian market in the mid-1990s. Ironically, in late 2004, it had reviewed its systems options, evaluating Finacle and Flexcube, but had decided to upgrade its existing system, with the bank’s MD, Shailendra Bhandari, citing its stability. Bank of Punjab, on the other hand, had been using Finacle since its own inception. With the merger, a decision was needed on which system to adopt, with Finacle selected. In fact, Fernandes said there was a full selection process, with ‘serious competition’ with I-flex at the shortlist stage. The combined bank had 386 outlets and set about standardising on Finacle core banking, e-banking and CRM, with Equation to be switched off.


UCO Bank made its choice at around this time, going with


HP and Infosys, with Finacle to be deployed in 1000 branches. The bank envisaged 17 million customers and 21 million transactions per day within five years. These decisions meant that, at the end of 2005, Infosys was able to claim success in twelve of the 18 core banking solution decisions in India in the previous three years. At this time, there were a number of other decisions still to be made, with selections at different stages at Allahabad Bank (Wipro and Infosys were up against IBM, with I-flex, and TCS, with the latter ultimately gaining the deal), Bank of Maharashtra (subsequently also won by TCS in 2006), Punjab & Sind Bank, Dena Bank, and United Bank of India. These last two did in fact select Finacle and, in fact, after two attempts with other systems, so did Punjab & Sind (see below).


Universal Banking Systems Market Report | www.ibsintelligence.com


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