Punjab National Bank sets a Milestone for the Indian Banking Industry

Sun Microsystems’ and Finacle core banking solution implementation on the Oracle platform.

New Delhi, February 5, 2009 – Punjab National Bank (PNB), India’s second largest public sector bank today announced that it has completed 100% core banking implementation at all its 4604 branches and extension counters through the Finacle Universal Banking Solution from Infosys, on Sun infrastructure and the Oracle Database setting a significant milestone for themselves and a new benchmark for the Indian banking industry.

Completed in November 2008, 4 months ahead of schedule, the bank implemented industry-leading Finacle core banking solution from Infosys across its operations running a flexible, and scalable database platform from Oracle and innovative and cost-effective Sun SPARC enterprise servers from Sun Microsystems

With its pan India presence, PNB offers a wide variety of banking services through its 4604 branches including 249 extension counters – the largest amongst Nationalized Banks. With an increasingly dynamic business and regulatory environment, PNB sought to not only achieve automation, but also centralize operations, standardize branch processes, achieve high scalability for future business growth, provide flexibility of creating innovative banking products to its lines of business, and at the same time, reduce overall costs.

The visionary zeal and the futuristic view of the Bank’s top management in the year 2000-2001 incubated the idea of introduction of a Centralised Banking solution. The bold and innovative thought culminated into the CBS architecture with Finacle application on Oracle Database and Sun hardware platform with Solaris Operating System.

In 2001-2002, PNB embarked upon a transformation journey unparalleled in the country in terms of scale and technology. The bank became the first public sector bank in India to opt for a new generation core banking platform – Finacle from Infosys. Since then, Finacle has enabled the bank to consolidate and centralize its operations, improving branch efficiency and productivity per employee. Consolidation has also resulted in reduction of revenue leakage and cost, while increasing ease of technical support and maintenance at branches.

With Finacle’s agile and future proof technology, the bank today has over 22,500 concurrent users. The solution’s scalability has also enabled the bank’s scalability to be the best in the country with the number of peak transactions at 3.5 million.

Finacle core banking platform also provides the bank with exceptional agility for product innovation and improved flexibility of operations. With seamless integration of delivery channels such as ATM and internet banking solutions, PNB is able to provide 24X7 services to customers at a reduced transaction cost.

Sun SPARC enterprise M series and energy efficient Chip Multi-Threading (CMT) systems running the Solaris Operating System delivered higher performance and scalability, enabling PNB’s architecture to scale seamlessly from catering to 500 branches to more than 4600 branches across the nation. Periodic consolidation of servers and storage by Sun Professional Services also delivered important benefits – optimizing compute and storage utilization, reducing power, cooling and space costs significantly over a period of time.

Sun technologies also ensured continuous availability of the banking platform with the Disaster Recovery Site established by the bank and as part of test drills, the Bank has successfully operated out of its alternative datacentre (DRS).

PNB’s choice of the Oracle Database has provided the bank’s IT infrastructure with robustness, management features, security and scalability as well as performance requirements to service 3.5 million transactions and 22500 concurrent users – a significant achievement in the Indian banking industry. In addition, the Oracle Database will help PNB take control of its enterprise information, gain better business insight, and quickly and confidently adapt to an increasingly changing competitive environment.

With secure, highly available and scalable grids of low-cost servers and storage, Oracle customers can tackle the most demanding transaction processing, data warehousing, business intelligence and content management applications.

The 100% implementation of Finacle Core Banking Solution shall enable PNB to further reduce operational costs and revenue leakage while improving productivity of branches, introduction of new and innovative products and visibility of business. The anywhere anytime banking facility will enable the bank to offer products for every segment of the customer.

On the landmark achievement of 100% CBS, Dr. K. C Chakrabarty – Chairman and Managing Director of Punjab National Bank said “The challenges of the financial sector can be met with the total connectivity and the centralisation of the banking operations. It not only ensures standardisation of products, but also enables quick launch of the new and innovative financial products ensuring sufficient lead time to market it. Vast majority of our population are still denied easy access to banking and the technology driven Financial inclusion initiative will bridge the gap. The core banking solution offers seamless platform for integrating various such initiatives and also reduces the cost of transaction, thereby offering financial products at an affordable cost. The achievement of 100% CBS is the beginning of our efforts in this direction. The contribution of our technology partners enabled us to achieve the milestone ahead of the time schedule.”

Mr. Haragopal M, Head – Finacle, Infosys Technologies Ltd., said on the occasion, “I congratulate Punjab National Bank on setting this unique standard in the Indian banking industry. Our long-standing and progressive partnership also highlights Finacle’s leadership in large scale banking transformation, the solution’s future proof technology and powerful capabilities. India is a strategic market for Finacle and we look forward to closely collaborating with Punjab National Bank for their future growth plans.”

Commenting on this achievement, Mr. T. Srinivasan, Vice President, Technology Sales, Oracle India said, “It gives me immense pleasure to see our relationship with PNB, of almost a decade, reach this stage of achievement. We have worked closely with the bank to provide an IT infrastructure through Oracle Database that will enable the bank to support its customers 24×7.” He added, “In addition, our database is easy to deploy and manage and will provide PNB with high availability of data.

Highlighting the need for banks to transform business functions by leveraging agile next generation technologies, Mr. Anil Valluri, Vice President and Managing Director- India GEM, Sun Microsystems said, “We congratulate PNB on completion of this milestone and we are privileged to be part of this project. This represents a giant stride for the Indian banking industry in its road to adoption of technology. In order to meet rapidly changing business demands, banks need enterprise-wide tools that can eliminate obstacles, meet the challenge of new markets, and ultimately lead to a healthy competitive position. With over two decades of technology experience, Sun Microsystems has been a leading provider of mission critical technologies and services to the Banking industry and our customers are marquee names in the Indian banking industry. The deployment of Sun’s flexible and efficient infrastructure has helped PNB in the implementation of the core banking solution at a rapid pace.”

About Punjab National Bank

As India’s largest nationalized bank with a nationwide network of 4604 branches including 249 ECs at 2557 locations and 4 foreign offices, PNB’s leadership has always stood the test of time. Set up in 1895, PNB has played a pivotal role in different stages of the country’s economic resurgence from the pre and post independence era to the nationalization and liberalization period. Driven by the conviction that “CUSTOMER IS KING”, the bank has aggressively infused technology into its operations resulting into new delivery channels and services and aiding its drive of Inclusive growth., PNB has evolved into a significant banking institution committed to redefine excellence every day.

PNB’s endeavor is to provide excellent, courteous and world class technology based services to one and all. Bank’s proven customer-centric initiatives, business processes in tandem with the emerging market trends are bringing fructuous results.

Bank had declared year 2008 as year of FINANCIAL INCLUSION and during the year bank has opened more than 25 lacs beneficiary accounts

About Finacle Universal Banking Solution

Finacle from Infosys helps banks WIN IN THE FLAT WORLD by providing solutions and services that enable a shift in their strategic and operational priorities. The offerings address the comprehensive technology-led business transformation requirements of retail, corporate and universal banks worldwide by maximizing their opportunities for growth, while minimizing the risks that come with such large scale transformation. For more information, visit www.infosys.com/finacle

About Infosys Technologies Ltd

Infosys (NASDAQ: INFY) defines, designs and delivers IT-enabled business solutions that help Global 2000 companies win in a flat world. These solutions focus on providing strategic differentiation and operational superiority to clients. With Infosys, clients are assured of a transparent business partner, world-class processes, speed of execution and the power to stretch their IT budget by leveraging the Global Delivery Model that Infosys pioneered. Infosys has over 91,000 employees and operates globally from 21 countries. Infosys is part of the NASDAQ-100 Index. For more information, visit www.infosys.com

Infosys Technologies Ltd – Safe Harbor

Statements in connection with this release may include forward-looking statements within the meaning of US Securities laws intended to qualify for the “safe harbor” under the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act. These forward-looking statements are subject to risks and uncertainties including those described in our SEC filings available at www.sec.gov including our Annual Report on Form 20-F for the year ended March 31 2008 and our other recent filings, and actual results may differ materially from those projected by forward-looking statements. We may make additional written and oral forward-looking statements but do not undertake, and disclaim any obligation, to update them.

About Oracle India

Oracle is the world’s largest business software company. It has been operating in India for more than 20 years, first through a distributorship and then through its own subsidiary since 1993. India accounts for Oracle’s largest R&D investment outside the United States. It also hosts several of Oracle’s global divisions including global consulting and support, Oracle On–demand, Internet sales and financial services operations. Through its network of more than 450 OPN members, Oracle India markets the complete range of Oracle products and services across the country and works with more than 7000 customers in the telecommunications, banking, insurance, manufacturing and utilities industries, across the government and private sector. Oracle India is a major partner for E-Governance initiatives of Central and State Government bodies. It houses the Oracle-HP E-Governance Centre of Excellence, Oracle Asia R & D Centre and Partner Solution Center in Gurgaon, near New Delhi, while Oracle’s Retail Centre of Excellence is located in Bangalore.

About Sun Microsystems, Inc.

A singular vision — “The Network Is The Computer” — guides Sun in the development of technologies that power the world’s most important markets. Sun’s philosophy of sharing innovation and building communities is at the forefront of the next wave of computing: the Participation Age. Sun can be found in more than 100 countries and on the Web at http://sun.com.