Polaris Software Lab expects to generate revenue of around $100 million (nearly Rs 450 crore) in the next five years from its FT Grid (financial technology grid) offering, which the company launched on Tuesday, claiming it to be the world's largest ‘cloud' offering with capacity to handle 100 million customers.

The FT grid will enable the Chennai-based software company to offer its financial technology infrastructure and banking products on a pay-per-use (cloud) model to banks and financial institutions, Mr Arun Jain, Chairman and CEO, Polaris Software, told newspersons.

In the last three years Polaris has invested nearly Rs 100 crore in the new platform, he said. “The price of Re 1 per customer per week is very affordable,” said Mr Jain.

The new platform is pre-installed software but has certain restrictions on clients making changes, said Mr Jaideep Billa, Executive Vice-President, FT Grid. A cooperative bank can go live with a core banking solution (CBS) using FT Grid in 60 days as against a few months or even one or two years in a typical full suite of CBS, he said.

Using FT Grid, the company would deliver ‘sachet banking' — a concept similar to sachet shampoo — to tap smaller clients such as cooperative banks. The service would be offered in multiple languages, including Hindi, Tamil and Telugu, he said.

First client

Polaris has already offered the new platform on a private cloud to Deutsche Bank in Germany. It is also in talks with Andhra Pradesh Co-operative Bank; a bank in the US, and another Cooperative Bank in Kerala, said Mr Jain.

Polaris has entered into a three-year agreement with US-based IdenTrust and IT major IBM to provide reliable and scalable IT infrastructure for FT Grid. IdenTrust does transactions worth nearly $6 trillion in the US, and is a critical infrastructure provider to the US economy, said Mr Jain.

Mr Billa said the first variant of FT Grid — FT Grid 7010 — would be for CBS, which will be available for India, Bangladesh, Africa and Vietnam while “FT Grid 8010” will be for capital markets for European clients.

The third offering “FT Grid 9010” will be for corporate banking solutions in developed markets such as the US, Canada and Australia.

On Polaris' flagship product, the 'Intellect GUB' platform, Mr Jain said the company has invested, in the last six years, around Rs 400 crore and expects to generate more than $120 million business this year.

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