Aadhaar bridge system on Fiorano

BANGALORE, INDIA: Fiorano Software, a player in enterprise integration and messaging middleware solutions announced that Federal Bank has deployed Fiorano ESB to support India's Aadhaar Payment Bridge System (APBS), a welfare disbursement system.

Currently, many of India's poorest citizens do not have ID cards, bank accounts or even addresses that they can use to obtain social services. The distribution of funds is wrought with inefficiencies, corruption and leakages. The APBS is a payment gateway platform created by the National Payments Corporation of India that will be used to electronically distribute funds to beneficiaries of social security pensions, employment guarantee program, public distribution system and other government programs.

P. Chidambaram, the Finance Minister of India, noted in a recent interview that the government spends "thousands and thousands of crores of rupees" on pension and various subsidies. "We are going to launch the ambitious program of paying a direct cash subsidy to people through the Aadhaar system in 51 districts across 15 states by 2013," he said.

The integration of data and managing settlements required to support the APBS involves managing multiple complex file formats of various banks and complying with the Reserve Bank of India's standardized formats. Banks need to connect with employment guarantee and other subsidies, Social Security Pension, Handicapped Old-Age Pension and other government programs.

Federal Bank will be one of the first few "sponsor" banks in India to attain this capability. "This is a huge opportunity for Banks to gain new customers and have access to large deposits," said K P Sunny, IT Head at Federal Bank. "It can be a major competitive differentiator for a new customer's decision on where to bank."

Federal Bank was able to implement the system with Fiorano's Enterprise Service Bus which seamlessly integrates applications with the bank's core banking framework, Finacle from Infosys. As the announcement added, FioranoESB Enterprise Service securely settles transactions in real-time in the specified messaging format including managing returns and mismatches and routing of funds. Fiorano's code-free integration approach dramatically reduces implementation time enabling Federal bank to bring these new capabilities to market faster, it further stressed.