The new combined solution will provide integration between i-flex's core banking suite, FLEXCUBE, and PeopleSoft's financial management and customer relationship management applications. This new integration will provide financial institutions with a dynamic view of balances, transactions, and account history across all core-processing systems, eliminating multiple data entry and use of multiple systems. As a result, financial institutions will benefit from increased accuracy and improved customer satisfaction.

"Banking institutions are seeking technologies that will improve productivity and lower operating costs in today's competitive environment," said Robert Hunt, senior analyst in the Retail Banking research service at TowerGroup. "Combined solutions like that of PeopleSoft and i-flex have made a great deal of progress in providing more comprehensive solutions that serve these needs."

FLEXCUBE is a comprehensive solution that captures and processes banking transactions for retail, consumer, corporate, investment and internet banking, asset management, and investor servicing. It has been ranked the world's number one selling banking solution in 2002 and 2003 by the UK-based International Banking Systems (IBS Publishing). Combining PeopleSoft's enterprise applications with i-flex's FLEXCUBE enables banks to streamline the processing of all financial transactions such as customer deposits and withdrawals, security trades, loan payments, and teller transactions from the core banking system to the bank's financial systems.

"Banks are seeking an enterprise-wide view of all of their products and services so they can monitor volume and the rate of return," said R. Ravisankar, CEO, International operations, i-flex Solutions. "Combining our industry-leading FLEXCUBE product with PeopleSoft's award-winning enterprise applications provides seamless visibility while decreasing the customer's total cost of ownership."

"Many banks are still operating antiquated core banking systems that are costly to maintain, difficult to modify, and lack visibility into real-time financial information," said Jim Gahagan, vice president and global industry executive, Financial Services Industry, PeopleSoft. "i-flex solutions is the IT partner of choice within financial services markets. The combination of FLEXCUBE and PeopleSoft's industry-leading applications provide a holistic view into customer transactions and their impact on the bank's overall profitability."