Gainers

Although the Indian markets were closed on Friday for a public holiday, some of the Indian fintech firms performed well enough in the shorter week to make it to the top of the Finextra50 table.

News of a possible share buy-back programme by Polaris sent shares in the Indian software vendor soaring 19.01% to finish Thursday at Rs103.30, making it the best performer in the index last week.

Indian vendors i-flex, Mphasis, Nucleus Software and 3i Infotech also posted gains, possibly due in part to a strong performance by industry giant Infosys which - despite posting a disappointing set of fourth quarter results - gave a confident, better-than-expected outlook for the year ahead.

I-flex stock rose 18.46% to close Thursday at Rs1297.10, while Mphasis increased 13.57% to close the short week at Rs238.50 and 3i Infotech rose 11.53% to finish at Rs123.80 on Thursday.

Meanwhile news of a new contract with Abu Dhabi-based Reem Finance helped drive shares in Nucleus Software, which closed the week up 12.89% at Rs265.85.

Outside of India, New Jersey-based Cognizant saw its stock rise 16.70% to close Friday at $30.96 after a Citigroup analyst forecast strong growth for the company and reaffirmed a "buy" rating on the stock.

Shares in US fintech vendor Fiserv also pushed up during the week and finished Friday 10.14% higher at $54.10. Financial data vendor Factset Research Systems also performed well, rising 12.69% to $59.25.

Losers

However, concerns over the downturn in the financial sector continued to impact stocks, most notably the newly-merged Thomson Reuters Group which saw its shares - which opened on the London Stock Exchange on Thursday at 1700 pence - fall 8.59% to end Friday at 1554 pence.

The share price fall - which has been caused in part by worries that massive job cuts by banks will affect demand for the vendor's technology - made the new group the biggest loser on the index last week.

Investment research vendor Morningstar also took a battering last week, with the stock falling 7.27% to $56.75. Meanwhile EDB Business Partner saw its shares drop 4.16% to NKr39.20 after the stock was downgraded to "hold" by analysts at Orion Securities.