Headquartered in New York the unit will centralise and coordinate Oracle's financial services software products and serve as a vehicle for future acquisitions.

The new unit will bring together i-flex's applications - including Flexcube, Reveleus, Mantas, DayBreak and Insure3 - with Oralce's product suite.

In a statement Charles Phillips, president of Oracle, says the formation of the unit "will enable the consolidation and integration of our growing portfolio of financial services applications to provide the comprehensive and best-in-class solutions that our financial services customers expect".

I-flex executives R Ravisankar - currently CEO for international operations - and Deepak Ghaisas - who is currently CEO for India operations and CFO - will join Hukku to form part of the unit's management team.

Hukku will head the new unit in addition to his i-flex oversight responsibilities and will continue on the vendor's board as non-executive chairman.

Ravisankar and Ghaisas will both join the i-flex board as vice chairmen.

I-flex says its COO NRK Raman has been named managing director and CEO, while Makarand Padalkar, currently chief of staff and head of investor relations, assumes the role of i-flex's CFO.

Finally, Derek Williams, EVP of Oracle, will also join the i-flex board.

I-flex says the management changes are designed to achieve better co-ordination with Oracle's strategy for financial services. "This is an integral step in i-flex's strategic roadmap to position ourselves better to capture the enormous opportunity in financial services by expanding our leadership team," says Hukku.