Nationalised Bank, Punjab National Bank (PNB) announced the successful deployment of country’s first ever 100 percent core banking system (CBS) assisted by technology partners, Infosys, Oracle and Sun Microsystems. The system was completed 4 months ahead of the schedule says the firm.

The system uses Infosys’ Finacle software, database platform from Oracle and enterprise servers from Sun Microsystems. The system will be available across all 4604 touch points of the bank and the bank aims to extend this to 100,000 touch points in the years to come.

When asked about the investment in the project, the bank said that the total cost for the project is less than the profits earned for the last quarter. The recurring expenditure will be Rs 100 crore for the bank.

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.”