Dena Bank has picked up a 15 per cent stake in banking e-infrastructure company Magic-e money for an estimated cost of Rs 15 crore.
The company will provide the bank the requisite information technology backbone for establishing inter-branch connectivity, thereby allowing anywhere, any branch banking, and also help in rolling out facilities such as Internet and mobile banking.
Pune-based Bank of Maharashtra (BoM) had in December entered into a joint venture with Magic Software Enterprises and NextStep Infotech to launch Magic-e money Ltd. BoM has a 30 per cent stake in the company, while the two software firms together hold 50 per cent.
"By picking up the stake, Dena Bank will be able to leverage the expertise of Magic-e money and harness the latest developments in the fields of banking software and hardware to its advantage," said Dena Bank chairman and managing director A G Joshi.
He pointed out that the bank was looking to put in place a data warehousing and mining system so that customer profiles, their needs and banking habits could be mapped out to allow it to customise products and services as per their requirements. Further, the customer intelligence tool will aid the bank in detecting and also allow it to take preventive steps against frauds.
The e-infrastructure company, which specialises in developing and customising infotech products and services for the banking sector, has started off its operations by taking up a project to connect 200 branches of BoM for providing any branch connectivity to its customers.
Magic-e money is also aiming to establish infrastructure to host business-to-business and business-to-customer applications of the bank's clients and others. It will also aid the bank with payroll process and disbursement, bank reconciliation, and asset liability management.
