The global recognisation for core banking solutions (CBS) from Indian information technoligy services companies has been slowly picking up thanks to their basket of product portfolio, modern architecture, and the capability to address the needs of retail, corporate, and investment banks as well as insurance companies on a single platform.

Giving the peer companies in the banking solutions services domain leading a tough fight, IT majors Infosys Technologies through its Finacle and Polaris Software through its IntellectTM suite of products, have been making their presence felt in the overseas market.

Recently, Polaris Software won the Vendor to Watch award by Aite Group, a leading independent research and advisory firm focused on business, technology and regulatory issues, for its IntellectTM suite of products. The award was announced in Aite’s latest report on global core banking systems. Similarly, the Financial-i Leaders in Innovation Award 2010 has been awarded to Finacle from Infosys for best core banking software.

?Finacle delivers flexible, scalable and state-of-the-art solutions that arm customers with what it takes to delight customers and grow market share. The award is a great endorsement of our continued commitment to excel as an innovative partner of banks,? said Haragopal Mangipudi, global head, Finacle, Infosys Technlogies.

As per a statement by Infosys, the award-winning Finacle core banking solution powers product, process and customer experience innovation at banks by enabling launch of value-added and extensible products.

Financial-i Leaders in Innovation Award 2010 is in its fifth year and covers more than 50 categories in global banking transaction. The categories were based on four focus areas such as payments and cash management, securities services, trade finance & supply chain and solutions.

Anita Hawsar, editor of Financial-i, said, ?Competition was fierce across a number of categories as banks and financial software vendors invested heavily in innovations designed to make the user experience more personlised and intuitive using the latest Web 2.0 applications?.

The Aite report summarises Polaris’ key strengths as ?proven scalability with large bank core deployments?, a ?depth of 360-degree customer view and availability of widgets for further analysis? and a ?strengthening brand?. The report also states that while three competitors lead the market with total number of core customers, Polaris and another service provider led the pack in sales velocity, defined as the total number of signed core contracts divided by total core customers in a year.

Polaris is therefore growing its core customer base at a faster rate factoring in its product suite, larger deal sizes, and some recent wins in North America.

Manish Maakan, global head, IntellectTM Solutions, Polaris Software, said, ?In today?s competitive marketplace, customer satisfaction is increasingly becoming a key element of business strategy. Recognition in the Aite Group report reaffirms our confidence in our highly secure and efficient IntellectTM core banking financial technology solution which has a proven track record of superior progressive modernization methodology.?

Talking about IntellectTM core banking solution, the report said, ?Polaris? core solution has seen fewer deployments than many of its competitors, due largely to the newness of its solution ? its IntellectTM suite of products has only been available in the market for about five years. Despite that, the company has proven scalability and is currently live at three institutions with more than $500 billion in assets. Its largest core customer has approximately $750 billion in assets.?

Christine Barry, research director at Aite Group, said, ?Polaris customers seem satisfied with the vendor and products. Many choose the vendor for the breadth of its product portfolio, its modern architecture and its ability to address the needs of retail, corporate, and investment banks and insurance firms on a single platform. Customers are also satisfied with vendor?s ability to deliver on promises and meet deadlines. In fact, 26% of Polaris?software projects have been delivered ahead of schedule over the last year. Through its accelerated implementation methodology, the vendor enables tier-II banks to go live the core solution.?