CBA ramps up Mumbai tech

Australia’s Commonwealth Bank (CBA) is beefing up its Mumbai offering by upgrading with tech-firm Tata Consultancy Services (TCS).

TCS has installed its BaNCS platform and is aiming to provide CBA with an India-ready “bank-in-a-box” tech-solution for trade finance, remittance and foreign exchange series to businesses that trade between Australia and India.

The platform will fully automate the bank’s operations and is also multicurrency and multilingual, which will help smooth the running of CBA’s first Indian branch which opened in August.

David Boyle, chief investment officer, international financial services at the Australian bank, says: “CBA was looking for an India-ready IT solution that could be delivered quickly in a country where CBA had no existing IT team. Our partnership with TCS has enabled us to launch quickly, plus the TCS BaNCS platform supports the products we need beyond basic loans and deposits.”

“There’s no substitute for on-time, on-budget delivery and our partnership with TCS has achieved just that.”

A number of Australian banks have gone through the process of opening up in Mumbai.

In October, ANZ received approval from the Reserve Bank of India to open a Mumbai branch in the first half of 2011.