Essar and Bankstar offer RTGS solution

Circuit EC / Mumbai

Essar Information Technology and Hong Kong-based banking software solutions provider Bankstar Technologies, have released an integrated banking solution to make effective use of the RBI’s Real Time Gross Settlement (RTGS) system. “Providing appropriate solutions to the banking industry in India is our prime focus and we realised that conditions in India necessitated a simple, user-friendly solution with local flavour to make effective use of the RTGS system,” said Sumant Kelkar, general manager (BFSI), Essar Information Technology (EITL). Banks in India need to address intra-day liquidity management, bank reconciliation, branch-initiated RTGS transactions as well as customer-initiated RTGS transactions to optimise the use of the RTGS at their nodal offices, non-centralised branches and for customers,” he added.

Anil Lalwani, the managing director of Bankstar said that the introduction of RTGS is an important phase in the automation of the RBI’s payment mechanisms. City Union Bank uses Bankstar’s file distribution system (FIDS) and is also implementing METEOR, an intra-day liquidity management system which is part of the RTGS related suite of products currently being released. “City Union Bank and Essar provided us with valuable insights that helped us customise our systems for the Indian environment. Our systems have been installed at about 50 central and commercial banks internationally, including six of the world’s top 100 banks,” he added.

Bankstar was part of the Unisys-led consortium that implemented a central bank payment solution at the Central Bank of Egypt.