"It is a fact that till now banks run on holding companies where credit cards, loans, checking accounts is done as a separate activity and branches have standalone kind of importance as single distribution points. Only those banks that can integrate across silos and those banks that can take branch as basis, and create multiple channels, where there is a seamless experience will succeed," he said.

Added Mr Rao: "Integrating across silos means not integrating alone, but with partners. Models all the way from Citigroup are trying to do everything to everybody using the best of breed from other sources. Everybody is focussing in a technical sense, and from a technological perspective, there has been a unanimous agreement that banks shouldn't get rid of the legacy system, but web-enable them and focus on middle-ware and middle space for that's where the biggest buck is going to be".

Said KPMG's executive director Atul Pradhan: "e-banking is an integration of banking strategy. The focus will not be on manufacturing products, but giving comprehensive product offering on their own or by sourcing it".

Mr Pradhan was of the view that to succeed, banks must have personalised customer gateways. The alliance targeted should be towards complete customer satisfaction. Speaking on the occasion, Compaq and Computer India's country manager S Sadasivan said that the strategy for banks should be the integration of delivery channels through Switch-Base 24, which can be used for `anywhere branch banking'. One solution to solve for Indian banks lagging behind is that they should strive towards e-banking through middle-ware using the Base-24 Switch integrated offering.