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Briefs
Onward banks on Bricks
Stepping down from the responsibilities of Onward Novell and
focussing on the functionalities of the Onward Group is no mean task. Harish
Mehta, CMD and Director, Onward, feels that the organisation is ready to increase
its presence in the market.
After a successful focus on high-end engineering design services, Onward will
now be focussing on the BFSI segment too. After the take-over of Kale’s
banking division, the group has been successful in increasing sales of its retail
banking solution Bank Bricks.
Bank Bricks with its components, Branch Bricks, Head Office (HO) Bricks and
Rural Bricks, has an installation across 4,000 branches in India. Says Mehta,
“In future, investments in technology are going to increase, and proper
utilisation of these investments is essential for banks to ensure that the systems
deployed are fully-integrated with their operations.”
Technology is expected to be the main facilitator of change in the banking and
financial sector. Multiple delivery channels of banking need to be integrated
so that a single-view of the customer can be provided across all service lines.
Operationally, the banks are looking at advanced solutions to handle areas like
cash and treasury management, and they are putting risk management solutions
in place.
Branch Bricks is a solution for automating core operations and several banking
functions of individual branches. It enables the spread of branch-level automation
in a phased manner according to the needs and investment priorities of the bank.
HO Bricks collates all information from the branch automation software on deposits,
advances and financial accounting to generate consolidated statements for the
bank. The solution supports the Windows, Unix, Linux and Novell platform.
According to Mehta, Onward is also looking at the rural segment to provide back-office
solutions called Rural Bricks. It is essentially a software solution projected
to cater to the banks’ need to computerise their branches, including rural
and semi-urban branches. It also addresses the banks’ demand for back-office
mechanisation processes that provide MIS reports, both mandatory and non-mandatory,
that are extremely useful for banks’ financial operations.
Onward’s clients for this initiative include nationalised banks like Bank
of Baroda, UCO Bank and Bank of Maharashtra; private sector banks like Ratnakar
Bank and United Western Bank; and co-operative banks like Capital Local Area
Bank and Bhuj Mercantile.
— Priya Jain
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