Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), a global IT services and consulting firm, announced on Friday that its client Indian Bank has been selected as a model bank for their core-banking modernisation programme by Celent, a research & advisory firm.

Indian Bank has been serving customers for more than a century and is seen as a front-runner in specialised banking as well as rural development sector. By deploying TCS BaNCS across 1647 branches, Indian Bank has re-engineered its IT infrastructure to offer finely-tailored products to its corporate and retail customers.

Speaking on the occasion, MS Sundara Rajan, chairman & MD of Indian Bank, said, ?Our mission is to take banking technology to the common man and we are delighted to receive this acknowledgement. To be benchmarked among the finest, global institutions can only spur us to further heights.?

?Indian Bank is a classic example of the leapfrogging that is happening throughout Asia. Banks are moving from branch-based systems, where customer account information is kept at a specific branch, to start with a clean sheet with respect to IT infrastructure. Indian Bank chose TCS BaNCS to create a state-of-the-art core system with business workflow, rules-based routing, electronic transactions and cash management services. Because Indian Bank has entirely scrapped their legacy systems, the bank is able to jump to a state-of-the-art infrastructure with increased back office and IT efficiency and a broader product offering,? said Bart Narter, senior vice-president (banking group) of Celent.

Commenting on the accolade received by Indian Bank, N Ganapathy Subramaniam, president of TCS Financial Solutions, said, ?It has been a joy to witness first-hand how a fine institution like Indian Bank has harnessed change to serve their customers. Their vision and total commitment to the modernisation programme merits this award, and we are only glad to play a support role by delivering certainty throughout this transformation programme. This is the second year in a row that a TCS BaNCS customer has been cited in the Celent Model Bank Report.??