Bank chairman and CEO Sethumadhavan said that the latest solution with an investment of Rs 30 crore to 35 crore was intended to network around 150 branches across the country in three phases covering around 70 per cent of the banks business. The bank with a turnover of Rs 6,700 crore and targeting Rs 7,500 crore by the end of this fiscal was setting up its data centre here. With this SIB would be the first bank in the State to have such a centralised banking solution and also have the largest single site and core banking centralised implementations.The solution has Finacle - a state-of-the-art banking product of Infosys.

The IT giant would provide the strategic value and partnership for ensuring success of the project, Mr Sethumadhavan said.

It is based on the latest in web technology and would cover the entire core banking requirements of SIB. The solution would also support true online, realtime banking. The integrated offline facility would help the bank maintain the service quality unaltered, even in the case of network failures, he added.

Through this there would be better controls, manageability and availability of timely information. There would be the latest in banking facility like anywhere banking adding to the services offered by the bank. The bank would in phases launch new technology products like net banking, tele banking, networked ATMs.

The bank with 372 branches spread out in the country aims at a total business of Rs 10,000 by 2002. Its net in the first half of this fiscal was Rs 20.21 crore. Mr Murthy said Infosys would provide the best in banking solution which had a 50 banks.