The Punjab State Co-operative Bank (PSCB), and 19 other district central co-operative Banks, have selected Oracle and Flexcel International as their IT partners to deploy FLEXCUBE in the largest core banking rollout in the Indian co-operative banking sector. FLEXCUBE, powered by Oracle Database and Oracle Real Application Clusters, will enhance the efficiency with which Punjab State Co-operative Bank can deploy people, processes and products in 800 bank branches spread across Punjab.

Flexcel International, a subsidiary of i-flex solutions, offers Oracle Financial Services OnDemand. It will deploy, host and manage the core banking solution, which will seamlessly integrate with all institutional delivery channels and enterprise-wide systems.

The bank has already built a robust data centre that is sufficient to manage the 800 plus branch roll out. Deployment of the solution in about 40 plus branches across 18 banks has been completed. The second phase of the solution implementation across 200 branches will commence shortly. The roll out across the remaining branches will be completed as part of the third phase.

With the deployment of FLEXCUBE and Oracle Real Application Clusters, one of the building blocks for grid computing, Punjab State Co-operative Bank will be able to enhance the efficiency of its transaction processing and provide on-line, real-time banking to accounts from any of the 800 bank branches in the network. It will also enable standardisation of products and services to customers.

"We selected FLEXCUBE, Oracle Database and Oracle Financial Services OnDemand to enhance our efficiency by replacing manual processes, maintain the customer intimacy we have created over the years, and develop competitive differentiation because we expect the market to be increasingly demanding," said P S Sidhu, managing director, Punjab State Co-operative Bank.

"We are confident the benefits to Punjab State Co-operative Bank and its members from this implementation could be substantial, in terms of savings in cost, effort and time to service the customers," said Venkata Subramanian, CEO, Flexcel International.