'India always demands unique solutions'

George Paul, executive vice president – Marketing, HCL Infosystems Limited, talks to Pankaj Maru of CyberMedia News and shares perspective on the company's new business venture amid the global recession, the demands of Indian banking sectors and technological challenges for development of banking services in rural India. Excerpts:

Recently, HCL Infosystems partnered with Korea's Nautilus Hyosung to offer automated teller machines (ATM) for Indian banking sector. Do you think in the current sluggish business scenario, it was the right time for such business partnership?

If you go by what Warren Buffett says, “The best time for you to make your investment is when the market is done”. So beyond that if you look at what HCL has done over the past one year, you will see that we have taken a series of steps that are setting a foundation for tomorrow's growth.

We took some great initiatives on the laptop front with the launch of HCL Touch which has set a new benchmark for laptop service in this country, where customers now have 24x7, or 365 days a year, service available, which was not available as of date in this country.

It is a big investment from HCL side, but it is an investment that HCL has made knowing that laptops are increasingly going to be used by the consumers.

You also saw us launch HCL Security, which is a 100 per cent subsidiary addressing the infrastructure and homeland security market for the country.

HCL brings a complete portfolio of banking products and services to the Indian market space.

Beyond the core IT products, we have products such as core banking products, core insurance and treasury, cash management, data warehousing, etc. And one solution that was missing in our portfolio offerings to Indian market space was the self-service ATM products.

So from that perspective, this partnership announcement is extremely important for us. If you look at India, we have an installed base of roughly 26 ATMs for one million people vis-a-vis something as high as 56 in China and 1900 plus in Korea. So in India the ATM market is set to grow and that's the opportunity we see.

In global perspective, Indian economy has shown great resilience against the slowdown compared to other economies and markets. So in your view, does the Indian economy and banking sector, particularly the rural banking, has great room for financial technologies and devices?

There are a couple of things that are well for Indian economy. One of which is that our Indian economy is an insulated economy that means about 80-85 per cent of our economy is local and not dependent on exports.

The second thing, fortunately for us, is our banking system is regulatory and we do not have open currency like other countries. And the third thing, of course, is that the Indian economy is in a phase of growth. So all these put together has been fortunate for India as a country.

Indians are demanding for growth, they want to live better lifestyle, better education and better health. And elections have shown that the governments bring about growth, reap the benefits. So there's a great emphasis from some governments in bringing about development in rural part of India, which is roughly about 70 per cent of the country's total population.

A part of the development is taking banking services over there; things like national rural employment guarantee scheme (NREGS), financial inclusion, computerization of co-operative banking sectors are all such developmental initiatives. So we believe, and are also certain, that there will be a demand of financial technologies in the sector.

Do you agree that the development of rural India requires unique technologies and solutions as per the local market demands and conditions?

Yes, I think India always demands unique solutions – things that work in global context will not work for India. For instance, even the world famous MacDonald had to localize their products for the Indian market and yes they are successful.

So, now what are the things that Indian market demands? For example, if you take banking automated solutions - there's a need for bilingual software or bilingual capable solution. There is a need for products that can work in rural conditions – where the connectivity, power and air-conditioning requirements are not the same as the metros or urban areas.

Coming to the literacy level, in a sense they may not know how to read and write from a language per se (it's not that the rural India is not educated) but they are literate in other sense. They are literate in business, they are number literate and they earn their livelihood.

So you have to bring out unique ways by which they can avail self service banking using ATMs and that also throws the opportunity for HCL and Hyosung to develop products catering to that unique requirements for customers in rural India.