Finacle to integrate with Infy BPO subsidiary

Finacle, which provides banking solutions to over 100 customers in 55 countries, is integrating itself under the Infosys (its parent) banner by leveraging the IT bellwether's consulting and business process outsourcing (BPO) services.

"Essentially, this is one of the fundamental shifts in our business strategy considering the overall significant growth in the market. It's time we switch gears from being an independent software vendor to an end-to-end transformation player. We will play a key role in providing consulting services," Haragopal Mangipudi, vice-president and global head, Finacle, said.

Finacle may also offer portfolio analysis with its universal banking solutions, which can transform legacy applications with universal banking solutions. It will also advise banks on replacing certain applications which are not core to their business.

The company, which notched up $68 million in revenues during the first half of the current financial year, added nine customers during the last two quarters. This includes five customers in the second quarter of the financial year 2007-08.

Of the 100 banks and financial institutions that are using Finacle's solutions, about 53 are in the APAC region, followed by 42 in Europe, West Asia and Africa (EMEA).

Even though just 5 per cent of its customers are in the US, the company expects huge growth from that region, since most of them are now looking at transforming their legacy applications.

Over the years Finacle has been witnessing huge growth in the EMEA region, though APAC continues to be its base.

"We believe that different markets are getting ready for the transformation at different time. This is the reason why the share of EMEA has gone up significantly compared with the APAC region," said Sumit Virmani, head, marketing, Finacle.

Finacle is also making its products ready to address many untapped markets in the EMEA and the US.

Company sources said they were making changes in their core banking solutions platform to cater to certain local accounting standards.

Finacle, which has a headcount of about 2,500, has Indian banks such as SBI, ICICI Bank, HDFC, UBI, PNB and Axis Bank as clients.