Zipping Through

Tech-savvy Punjab National Bank (PNB) successfully migrated its 1000th branch
to its core banking solution on March 24. PNB takes the credit of being the
first public sector bank to take the initiative to go for a centralized banking
solution (CBS). While Sun has provided the bank with the infrastructure, Infosys
has collaborated for the software, Finacle.

PNB has about 4200 branches, the highest in India, and serves over 3.5 crore
customers. "It was in 2000 that PNB decided on the need for a core banking
solution, and we have progressed steadily. The first milestone was its
implementation in eight branches in March 2002," says KS Bajwa, general
manager, information technology, PNB.

PNB has already achieved 100% computerization of its branches and is now
planning to bring about 2000 branches covering bank's major business centers,
including its top 100 banking centers in the country, under the CBS. The
installation at PNB has also become Sun's reference account worldwide.

The CBS acts as a single data bank, a backbone of 1000 branches to support a
gambit of services such as anytime anywhere banking, Internet banking, supply
chain management, utilities bill payment, image-based cheque clearing, central
data repository, disaster recovery management, flexibility in product offering
and a complete customer overview. Currently, 65% of the bank's business is
transacted on CBS.

According to Ajay Goel, director, Sun India, "The real-time business
continuity requirements have been taken care of by the primary site in Delhi and
the disaster site at Bombay." Rajinder Gandotra, head, technical
consultancy group, Infosys adds, "The bank's database has to be backed up
daily and we have used a snapshot technology." The branches are connected
through leased lines, ISDN and VPN, which is the emergency line.

According to a recent survey PNB's OLTP system might be one of the highest
transacted sites in the world. In addition, PNB also aims to achieve compliance
to international norms such as Basel II.

Jasmine Kaur in New
Delhi