Among the top 10 banks in The Philippines, Union Bank of the Philippines (UnionBank) entered into a strategic partnership with Infosys in July 2004, through its local partner TIM, to achieve greater business agility and lower total cost of ownership (TCO).

The Finacle core banking solution, running on Sun infrastructure, has been successfully deployed in more than 110 branches across the country with more
than 700 users logging onto Finacle concurrently every day. With this deployment, UnionBank now has a more robust and integrated front and back office system that will be able to deliver greater value to customers 24x7.

In a press conference to announce this achievement, Justo Ortiz, Chairman of UnionBank said, "In Finacle, we believe we've found a cost effective solution that scales up well as we push through our customer acquisition program. It is also one that empowers our people with the ability to rapidly deploy new products and services that this growing customer base demands. To do this, we needed a solution that would enhance our process efficiencies, thereby giving us a competitive edge in the market, while reducing the total cost of ownership. I believe we've found that in Infosys' Finacle."

He further added, "We adopted the 'Big Bang' approach in this implementation and converted all our branches at the same time, as we were confident in the bank's and our partners' abilities to manage such a big effort."

Speaking on this occasion, Merwin Fernandes, Vice President and Global Head of Sales & Marketing for Finacle, Infosys Technologies said, "Finacle has once again demonstrated that a scalable and flexible open systems-based solution can successfully power the bank's future. We are delighted that Finacle has delivered on the legacy replacement initiative of UnionBank to achieve competitive edge and lower total cost of ownership. This is a joint effort by the teams, and I congratulate all members on this stupendous success."

"Sun Microsystems and Infosys have a long track record of working with banks to help them integrate their business infrastructures around more efficient, flexible environments that reduce total cost of ownership," said Cynthia R. Mamon, president and managing director, Sun Microsystems Philippines, Inc. "Sun's Retail Banking Reference Architecture, based on Sun Fire servers, Sun StorEdge arrays, Sun Java System platform, and Finacle Core Banking solution, is designed specifically to enable banks to rapidly bring to market new applications and services that generate new revenue opportunities and provide a path for future growth. This furthers our commitment to driving innovation and delivering concrete results for the banking industry."

TIM President Jose Mari Antunez said, "TIM continues its endeavor to be the most reliable technology banking partner in the Philippines, and we have proven this by architecting the best-fit solutions, packaged with implementation and support services, to come up with the exact requirements to meet UnionBank's business objectives. As we have done in the past, we are committed to helping UnionBank in making banking services highly available to its customers. We are proud to bring along Infosys and Sun to the table to address UnionBank's requirements, thereby bringing about a successful partnership."