Canara Bank ties-up with i-flex, IBM

BANGALORE: Indian banking major Canara Bank today announced its tie-up with i-flex Solutions for implementing its core banking solution “Flexcube”, and with IBM, which would integrate the solution.

This has put to rest market speculation about which banking software company would win this fiercely contested account.

Oracle's move to gain a majority stake in i-flex seems to have paid for the latter which managed to counter Infosys' bid to push its Finacle product for the deal.

The announcement of this deal is a setback for Infosys whose chief mentor NR Narayana Murthy sits on the board of RBI and a fervent advocate of technology implementation in nationalized banks.

According to MBN Rao, CMD, Canara Bank, around 1053 branches would be covered during the first phase of the project, which is expected to take 12-13 months' time. While he declined to reveal the total value of the deal, he said that the hardware cost of the implementation alone is worth Rs 100 crore.

IBM - the systems integrator for the project, would be responsible for implementing hardware and software, managing data centers, disaster recovery and maintenance for a period of eight years.

Rao said that the rest of the Bank's branches would be covered in the second phase of the project. “Our main objective is to take technology to the rural areas of India,” he said.

Canara Bank, which does business worth Rs 1,60,000 crore, has more than 2500 branches and a customer base of over 26 million. The core banking solution would enable Canara Bank customers to access their accounts at any branch and other delivery channels virtually.

Other features include multi-city cheques, real time intra- and inter-bank fund transfers across branches.