India's Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) is to offer its core banking system software, Quartz, on an application services provider (ASP) basis to small and medium-sized financial services firms.
TCS says the ASP model will help smaller banks reduce investments in technology and cut maintenance costs. The service will also eliminate the need to upgrade systems and to recruit trained staff.
N.G Subramaniam, vice-president and head of banking industry practice, TCS, says there is tremendous potential for hosted services in the local banking sector, especially with small and mid-size co-operatives and regional banks.
"We are also evaluating the option of taking the managed services route as banks, especially the larger ones, are now looking at outsourcing their technology functions to concentrate more on core banking operations," says Subramaniam.
Seperately, the vendor has also announced that its custodial and corporate event processing product, NCS, has received SwiftReady 2003 Gold certification for securities custody and settlement.