The Hindu Business Line : Hexaware bags 4 clients for SOX practice

THE Sarbanes-Oxley practice, set up by Hexaware Technologies six months ago, is starting to get traction with the software service provider having bagged four clients with deals valued at $2 million so far. The company informed the exchange today about a $.12 million order from a UK-based bank.

"This is the initial value of the order and we expect this to scale up since SOX requires a periodic auditing of the (IT) systems. We expect revenues from this practice to double given the fact that the compliance date is fast approaching," Mr R.V. Ramanan, Senior Vice-President and Chief Software Architect, Hexaware Technologies, told Business Line.

This is the fourth order for Hexaware with the software service firm providing extensive consulting and testing services on an ongoing basis for compliance and sustenance. The assignment also involves providing end-to-end services for enabling compliance of the bank's processes to Sarbanes Oxley standards and ensuring completeness, transparency and accuracy in the bank's financial figures.

Sarbanes-Oxley requires compliance with a comprehensive reform of accounting procedures for publicly held corporations to promote and improve the quality and transparency of financial reporting by both internal and external independent auditors.

In the US for large corporates, November 15 is the deadline for complying with SOX for accelerated filers and July 15, 2005 for non-accelerated filers.

"While there are two components to SOX, we are not addressing the accounting standards part of it; we are looking at the IT-related processes. We expect a surge in demand for our SOX practice over the next eight months," Mr Ramanan said.

While currently Hexaware has prospects from the US and UK for its SOX practice, the company is also looking at extending its services to cover Basel II compliance with an integrated total risk management approach.