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Polaris launches banking software

Our Bureau

NEW DELHI, Dec. 5

POLARIS Software Lab Ltd has launched its suite of banking software products under the BankWare brand name.

The company is targeting sales of Rs 75 crore from this division over the next three years and is hoping to achieve a leadership position in this business in the Asia-Pacific region.

Speaking at a launch conference, Mr Arun Jain, Chairman and Managing Director, said that the launch of BankWare symbolised the company's move from the services arena, which has been its traditional strength, into product development for the banking and f inancial services segment.

The division is manned by over 100 professionals and is based in the company's Banking Product Development Centre in Noida, near the capital.

During the past 13 years, Polaris has executed mission critical projects for prestigious clients such as Citigroup, NEC, HP and Westpac Bank.

Mr Jain also said that the new software has BankNow and BankWise modules, which assure huge value propositions to potential stakeholder groups.

He added that these products reflected and fulfilled the constantly evolving needs of the banking sector and have been designed and developed after closely analysing the demands and expectations that end-customers have from banks.

BankNow is a tried and tested superior core retail banking product, derived from Marshall & Iisley's (M&I) EastPoint, which is successfully running in over 60 banks in the US and ten banks internationally, Mr Jain said.

Polaris and M&I have a strategic alliance, through which the Indian software company has licensing rights for the international version of EastPoint.

Polaris has put in over 600 man-months of development effort into this product and has enhanced it by adding new product processors and features.

Through the alliance, Polaris is expected to receive royalty every time M&I sells BankWare in the American markets and Polaris would inturn pay royalty to the American Bank major for sales in the other markets.

Besides this, Polaris offers a platform which will integrate various delivery channels.

DeliverNow is a plug-and-play architecture which allows organisations to scale in or integrate various modes of delivery, including Internet banking, mobile banking and a comprehensive CTI-based call centre solution.

Company officials said that apart from India, marketing offices for BankWare have been set up in Malaysia, Dubai and England.

Polaris has entered strategic alliances to further its reach.

In India, it has a strategic alliance with IBM to market the BankWare products. Key alliances are being forged with reputed international players like HP, SUN and Sybase.

In addition, channel partners are already in place at Malaysia, Indonesia, Singapore, the UAE, Oman, KSA, Egypt and Turkey.

The key focus markets are expected to be Middle East, Asia-Pacific, Eastern Europe, the UK, Africa and South Asia.