Temenos Ag To Cart Software Centres

Temenos Group AG, the world's number one global vendor for integrated banking software, is planning to shift all its development centres to Chennai by June 2002. The company is also planning to add around 500 to 600 employees during calendar 2002 from the present strength of 320.

K Pradeep, vice-president, Temenos, said: "We have spent around $60 million in product development in the last three years. The Chennai centre, which will now act as a global support and development centre, will attract a major portion of investment."

The company spends between 16 per cent to 18 per cent of its total revenue on Research and Development (R&D) and a major part is likely to flow into India.

Temenos is a single product company with a turnover of over $140 million during last fiscal ended December 2001. International Banking Systems Review (IBS) had recently ranked its product, 'Temenos Globus' as the leading application, in terms of sales, in its 2001 sales league table, company officials explained. I-Flex Solution's product, 'Flexcube' is ranked number two.

Pradeep said decision to re-locate their operations to India had already begun to bear fruits and added that the gross service margins for the quarter ended December 2001 increased to 9 per cent, compared to 1 per cent in the same period last year while the full year margin for service business was 13 per cent compared to 2 per cent for prior year.

Temenos despite having world's largest selling financial services product has no Indian clients among its 270- odd clients as of December 2001. "We would like to target the Indian market more aggressively this year. We have initiated dialogue with a couple of potential customers," he said. At present, Infosys's Finacle and I-Flex's Flexcube are the market leaders in India.