Indian Overseas Bank mulls new core banking solution on Oracle platform

Government-owned Indian Overseas Bank (IOB) will soon migrate to a new core banking solution (CBS) built on Oracle platform from its own CBS, a senior bank official said Saturday.

"The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) wants reports from the banks in a common format. Most of the banks are on Oracle platform and hence those who are not on that will have to migrate," IOB general manager S. Radhakrishnan told reporters on the sidelines of the bank's press meet here.

The RBI has decided to have an automated data flow (ADF) of reports in prescribed formats straight from the bank's computer systems without any manual intervention.

Radhakrishnan said the central government has asked the banks not on the Oracle platform to migrate to it.

A common request for proposals (RFP) will be floated on behalf of the banks that are not on the Oracle platform soon and the document is being worked out by IDBI Infotech, he said.

"The value of the proposed deal would be a couple of hundred crore of rupees. IOB might have to go for a new CBS," Radhakrishnan remarked.

IOB had developed its CBS in-house on Sybase platform and it had plans of floating a separate subsidiary to vend the solution. With the new development IOB will have to dump its own CBS.

He said the CBS market is dominated by companies like Tata Consultancy Services, Infosys and others.

Similarly a common RFP is also being planned on behalf of public sector banks for acquiring cash dispensers.

Radhakrishnan said the government has divided the country into several clusters and each will have a group of banks on behalf of whom a common RFP for cash dispensers would be issued by a lead bank.

"Majority of the transactions in automatic teller machines (ATM) are cash withdrawals. The other features of an ATM are hardly being used. Hence cash dispensers are better option. The cost will be nearly half of that of an ATM," Radhakrishnan said.

Source: EconomicTimes