Logica Bags Rtgs Contract From Rbi

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) awarded a Rs 75 crore contract to Logica India, the 100 per cent subsidiary of Logica Plc, the largest IT company in the United Kingdom, to implement the Real Time Gross Settlement System (RTGS) in India.

According to Hamish Harding, managing director of Logica India, "The implementation of this system would herald a new generation of high value payments on a real time basis allowing banks to transfer funds from one customer to another immediately."

The core banking system would cover all the general transactions and central accounting of the RBI, including the bank's general ledger.

Under the contract, Logica would use its banking product to enable 205 Indian banks and financial institutions to participate in the RTGS system directly.

The Indian contract will be Logica's 17th installation of an RTGS system around the world and its largest project in India.

Logica has been operating in India for the last 5 years with a staff strength of about 250 people across its offices in Bangalore, Mumbai and Delhi.

The company plans to invest another Rs 50 crore in India by 2002 with activities focused around financial product development and offshore projects.

The company also plans to increase substantially its capacity for project and product development over the next couple of years.

"With the calibre of Indian software professionals being one of the best in the world, Logica is of the view that India provides a unique and economically competitive business opportunity," said Harding.

"As a general policy we would try and move as many product development and support centres for the banking sector to Bangalore, for the worldwide operations of Logica," he added.