StanChart's electronic banking interfaces have two variants: `Electronic Banking Services for Windows (EBSW)' and `National Payment Services (NPS)'. EBSW will offer benifits like transaction and balance reporting, initiation of transactions for issuance of cashiers orders and bank drafts, as well as domestic and cross-border fund transfers. It will also customers to communicate with the bank through secured e-mail, and operates on a customer-friendly Windows-based customer workstation.

Said StanChart's head of transactional services, Tom MaCabe, "It (NPS) will allow customers to outsource the tedious workinvolved in processing bulk payments transactions whil still retaining management control over the processes. The propensity to outsource non-essential services is an emerging trend".

"We believe that with increased comptition in the market place in India, customers will no longer have the luxury of spending an inordinate amount of time and effort on non-essential activities. Outsourcing of non-essential activities will be the preffered mena of achieving focus. India will see this transition happening quite rapidly in the next few years. We have the dewsires products to heklp our custioners achieve their business objectives", StanChart's head of corporate & institutional banking, Jaspal Bindra, said.

StanChart claimed that it currently had a marketshare of 15 per cent in the cash mamagement business, and hoped to grow the business by by 40 per cent annually. Citibank is the current leader in cashmanagement with its `CitiCash'. Others with a like offering are HSBC with its `Hexagon', and Deustche Bank, ABNAmro and BankAm. Among state-run bank's, Corporation Bank and State Bank of India.