The country?s largest software exporter Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) is betting big on the domestic financial services and government space as they are expected to push up IT spends this year.
TCS CEO & MD N Chandrasekaran said there was a strong push on financial inclusion industry from the regulators and banks and is, therefore, expected to see increased spending.
?The banks have already invested in the first phase of technology for core banking. We are now seeing the second wave of investment coming especially in the central processing, IT process integration, analytics and financial inclusion. We are witnessing increased spending in both private and public sector banks in India,? Chandrasekaran said. The firm is eyeing the opportunity to address issues in financial inclusion that would require altered high-end solutions.
The Indian public sector banks view the initial investment in technology as the biggest hurdle in terms of its adoption especially for the rural locations. According to Chandrasekaran, technology evolutions like ?cloud? that would enable the banks to adopt technology without any initial investment and only pay on per transaction basis, could push financial inclusion. ?Reduction in cost of services in the rural locations is an important aspect where the technology firms would play a major role,? he said.
The government plans to spend about $4 billion on IT and e-governance in FY11 from its forthcoming annual budget, which would take its spend on technology to as much as 3% of the total budget, ministry of IT and Communications, secretary, R Chandrashekhar had recently said.
TCS has already been working on a number of government projects including the MCA-21 project for the ministry of company affairs and ministry of external affairs? passport seva project. The firm is expected to go ?live? with the passport project by mid-March 2010, said SR Rao, additional secretary with ministry of communications and IT. TCS has been delaying the Passport project since June 2009 citing the complex nature of the project that required additional time.
Chandrasekaran also said that the firm was expecting an increase in budgets from the emerging countries however, ?the developed markets including the US, the UK and Europe it is going to be very company specific and geography based.
