The Hindu Business Line : i-flex plans to enter mortgage systems, credit card processing

Mr Rajesh Hukku, Chief Executive Officer, told presspersons here that the company would consider getting into these areas either through alliances with other solution providers or through acquisitions. Earlier, the company entered into an alliance with FundTech to provide global payment system.

Recently, i-flex acquired Canada-based Castek a company that provides insurance solutions.

Mr Hukku said the acquisition helped it to enter a deal with Tokio Marine Management last year, to provide software for the Japanese company's US insurance operations.

US business

Asked if the Oracle majority stake completed last year has opened up new avenues for business in the US, he said that the company's client portfolio in the US had been more active in the service segment rather than in the product segment. The reason for this is that US financial institutions are not as flexible as emerging markets to replacing the core banking system altogether.

Mr Hukku said the company has traditionally had more success in selling products to emerging markets in the Asia Pacific region and in Africa for their core banking solutions, since in some cases there was little or no proper system running in those banks. The success in the product side later spread to parts of Eastern Europe and now Western Europe, he added.

This is evident from Europe's contribution to i-flex's product revenues, which have increased from 26 per cent for the year ended March 2005 to 34 per cent for the year ended March 2006. The US contribution, meanwhile, has gone down from 26 per cent to 22 per cent.