FIS (NYSE: FIS), the world's largest provider of banking and payments technology solutions and a global leader in consulting and outsourcing solutions, today announced its selection as electronic payments partner by Bank of Maharashtra, one of India's leading public sector banks.
The bank selected FIS' open systems-based switching solution, card management solution and its card fraud and risk monitoring system in order to modernize its payments platform. This integrated platform provides the bank with a future ready solution with rich functionality and scalability characteristics to meet the bank's projected growth in transaction volume.
Bank of Maharashtra, which has more than 1,800 ATMs and over 1,800 branches across India, has the strongest branch network in the state of Maharashtra. It is focused on maintaining the strong connection with its more than 15 million customers, and the implementation of a state-of-the-art payment platform is a major step in that direction. The bank selected FIS as the ideal technology partner, able to meet their business priorities and scale with the bank as they scale up their business.
FIS' switching platform and card management system is now live. The bank has completely replaced their legacy platform in a single cutover exercise, with minimum disruption to this critical customer-facing channel. In addition to the switching environment, FIS also has implemented its industry leading card management application, providing the bank with an integrated debit card lifecycle management solution with a proven track record on scalability, availability and performance, in addition to strong feature set.
FIS' strong presence in India, along with strong support and dedicated participation from the bank team, ensured that this project was successfully executed on a very tight schedule.
"Bank of Maharashtra sought to move from a hosted solution to its own, on-premises, integrated payments platform, allowing them to expand their payment features quickly, while providing for easy management through the solution's open system design," said Raja Gopalakrishnan, managing director, Asia Pacific, and COO, FIS International. "FIS' world-leading switching capabilities, coupled with the experience of our team in India, present a compelling proposition in the region."
"We were looking for a way to cost-effectively build for the future," said R. Athmaram, executive director, Bank of Maharashtra. "With so many successful installations of its EFT switching platform, FIS allowed us to ensure high quality service to customers, while also maintaining capability with current technology."
"The team demonstrated high standards of project management, which could enable this successful migration of 1,800-plus ATMs, with five million card base and EFT/Switch implementation in a short time," said Narender Kabra, general manager, Bank of Maharashtra.
Bank general manager-IT Mukund Kulkarni commented that, with this engagement, "We are committed to deliver superior customer services in the payment space to our customers by leveraging this state-of-the-art technology."
Bank of Maharashtra is a public sector bank that opened its first office in 1936. It aims to be a vibrant, forward-looking, techno-savvy, customer-centric bank, serving diverse sections of Indian society.