The solution had been tested across the following functional areas: customer information registration, retail and corporate accounts, term deposits, loan origination and support, cash operations, payment system functioning and treasury operations.

URALSIB and Infosys teams have successfully demonstrated the potential of leveraging a 'centralised core banking system' to make customer service more effective and adopt banking best practices. The solution shall enable the bank to manage the challenges of scale, unifying processes and standards of different business lines.

"We are delighted to see Finacle successfully completing phase 1 of the technology led business transformation journey of URALSIB", said Haragopal M, Vice President & Business Head, - Finacle, Infosys. "Russia is a strategic market for Finacle and we look forward to working closely with URALSIB as they progress on this transformation and leverage technology to stay ahead in the market."

"From the start of our alliance, we were convinced about our joint ability to develop a localised solution. A project of this magnitude requires substantial attention and investments from both the parties. Partnership relations between the Bank and Infosys considerably contribute to the realisation of our common intentions", says Mrs. Lyudmila Shabalkina, CEO & First Deputy of Chairman of the Board, URALSIB Bank.

URALSIB BANK was formed in 2005 as a result of integration of the business lines of five banks - NIKoil IBG, AVTOBANK-NIKoil, URALSIB, Bryansky Narodny Bank and Kuzbassugol Bank. The new bank had not only consolidated the assets, branches and clients of the five banks, but the decision has been taken to provide a common platform for technology across the entire merged entities as well. A key focus was adoption of a unified technology engine to power growth and innovation in the marketplace.

"At URALSIB we have embarked on a technology-led business transformation journey in compliance with our own growth strategy which implies broad development of our sales network, says Andrey Donskih, Chairman of the Board, URALSIB Bank. - "We are confident about strengthening our leadership position in the national banking industry".

Implementation of Finacle universal banking solution at URALSIB BANK will continue. The near term plan of the project team is to carry out the lessons-learnt analysis and to incorporate the new legislative requirements into the system. The go-live in the Bank's central office, Moscow, has been planned for 2008.