The Hindu Business Line : `Infosys banking unit open to acquisitions'

INORGANIC growth is an option the Banking Business Unit (BBU) of Infosys will consider depending on the business need and suitability/fit of the entity.

Disclosing this to Business Line, Mr Merwin Fernandes, Global Head (Sales and Marketing), said that the BBU had added several clients subsequent to the acquisition of Trade IQ in the US.

BBU had entered the US and European markets sometime back with the acquisition of Trade IQ, the treasury products division of US-based IQ Financials.

This enabled it to acquire some key clients in Europe and the US such as the Credit Suisse Group.

"Our objective in acquiring Trade IQ was to plug the treasury gap in our solution portfolio and acquire some key clients in mature markets. We have added 40 Finacle (core banking solution) clients ever since, of which eight are for the acquired product, apart from the eight that we acquired with the product," Mr Fernandes added.

On whether BBU would not need to add more product functionalities as it encountered different regulators and competitors abroad, he said the company's approach to configuring optimum solutions to clients was based on a combination of build/enhance/buy on one hand and align/partner on the other.

While investing in enhancing Finacle and building innovations, the BBU had sought to align with best-of-breed third-party solutions such as FRS & Mantas for regulatory reporting, ACE for payment networks and Oracle's OFSA & OFDM for Business Intelligence.

The BBU had been investing heavily in getting Finacle benchmarked from a North American and European business and regulatory perspective as well, said Mr Fernandes.

This was sought to be achieved through structured and in-depth engagement with Tower Group over the past one year.

The objective was to ensure market readiness of BBU solutions upfront.

BBU is investing in Web Services enabling Finacle to seamlessly co-exist in a heterogeneous services based architecture preferred by most large banks in Europe and North America.

BBU clearly saw India and China as two key markets for Finacle. Retail banking was a key rapid growth area in both these countries and was likely to remain so in the foreseeable future.

Finacle already had a dominant position in India. As regards China, Infosys had already set up a subsidiary in that country. "We have identified banking as one of the key focus areas in China. We already have our first Finacle client in ABN Amro Greater China," Mr Fernandes said.