"Providing appropriate solutions to the Banking Industry in India is our prime focus and we realized that the conditions in India necessitated a simple, user-friendly solution with local flavour to make effective use of the RTGS system" Sumant Kelkar, General Manager (BFSI), Essar Information Technology Ltd. (EITL) said. "Simply asking the banks to use the Participant Interface provided would not result in effective use of the RTGS. Banks in India need to address Intra-day Liquidity Management, Bank Reconciliation, Branch Initiated RTGS Transactions as well as Customer Initiated RTGS transactions to optimize the use of the RTGS at their nodal offices, their non-centralized branches and for all their customers", Mr. Kelkar added further.

Anil Lalwani, MD of Bankstar stated "Introducing an RTGS is a very important stage in maturing of a Central Bank's (RBI) Payment Systems. We highly appreciate the confidence Essar have reposed in us by selecting us as their partner to assist banks in operating effectively in the RTGS environment. We are proud to state that City Union Bank, an existing Bankstar customer using our file distribution system FIDS, has already signed for METEOR, our Intra-day Liquidity management system which is part of the RTGS related suite of products currently being released. City Union Bank and Essar provided us with valuable insights into customizing our systems for the Indian environment. Our systems have been installed at about 50 Central and Commercial Banks internationally, including 6 of the world's top 100 Banks.

It will not be out of place to mention here that Bankstar was part of the Unisys led consortium that implemented a Central Bank Payment Solution at Central Bank of Egypt. Bankstar also provided feeder system to commercial banks in Egypt to allow them to interface with the Central Bank Payment System. We now look forward to accomplish in India what we have been able to do in other countries. We strongly believe it is imperative that our customers be provided with solutions that they can use fully, not solutions that are transported across international boundaries irrespective of whether they are relevant or not for local conditions, Mr. Lalwani expressed further.

Mr. Kelkar of EITL further added "We had the choice to develop the system ourselves or to partner with an acknowledged player in the banking software industry and we chose to partner with Bankstar Technologies Ltd. Bankstar has an impressive customer base which is indicative of their in-depth knowledge of this business, Bankstar has a development office in India and this allows close interaction with them in the process of fine tuning the system. We have been in collaboration with Bankstar since December 2003 tailoring the solution in a modular fashion that allows banks to implement the solution in stages and in sync with their business requirements. It is not that we will simply thrust solutions on banks whether they need it or not" Mr. Kelkar stated.

Essar and Bankstar are confident to offer a modular, cost- effective, user-friendly, easy-to-use but functionality-rich solution with full compatibility to RBI's RTGS system. We request banks to experience our customer-centric and quality conscious approach to ensure successful implementation.

Bankstar Technologies Ltd, the Hong Kong based Software Solutions Company, with a development center and Indian Subsidiary in Mumbai, today announced the signing of City Union Bank Ltd as its first customer for its RTGS Liquidity Management System (LMS) for Commercial Banks - METEOR. METEOR is an acronym for Member Bank Transaction Exchange Over RTGS, which enables the bank to comply with RBI's guidelines on LMS including Liquidity Pooling, Collateral Management and Payment Scheduling. METEOR is one of a range of products from Bankstar Technologies created using Borland® Delphi™.

Mr. Anil Lalwani, managing director of Bankstar Technologies Ltd says," City Union Bank Ltd was our first Indian customer when they installed our File distribution System (FIDS) in 2003 and we are happy that they have reinforced their faith in us by signing for METEOR." He further stated that METEOR uses Borland's highly sophisticated and well-tested products, which enables fast development of extremely stable solutions. This has enabled Bankstar to have a customer base of 50 customers including 6 of the world's top 100 banks and a leading BFSI conglomerate in Japan.

Mr. Sridharan, General Manager, CSD of City Union Bank Ltd expressed happiness and satisfaction on the work done by Bankstar for the bank. He said that this was the centenary year for the bank and they would strive to provide the most advanced services to their customers with the help of partners like Bankstar Technologies Ltd.

Mr. Satyen Parikh, Managing Director of Borland India Pvt. Ltd., said "We are deeply appreciative of Bankstar's investment in Borland Delphi for their core product set development as well as their continued support in providing a wide range of flexible and scalable solution sets to the Banking vertical. We are confident that the relationship will grow and show even greater promise."