NetApp partners Nabard on data centres for cooperative banks

Core banking solution will help banks to leverage technological solutions to help increase financial inclusion in rural India

Data storage solutions firm NetApp has partnered rural development lender Nabard for data and disaster recovery centres to help cooperative banks move on to core banking solution (CBS) platform.

Earlier, the banks were operating either in a manual environment or partially computerised standalone environment, leading to use of multiple technology platforms.

With CBS, banks will be in a position to leverage technological solutions to help increase financial inclusion in rural India.

Customers of these banks will also be able to avail facilities like any branch banking and e-transfer of funds.

"Through CBS, we have been able to reach out to India's rural sector and through the deployment of NetApp's solution in the project, being implemented by leading IT vendors, we have taken a step closer in achieving our goal of financial inclusion in India," National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (Nabard) Chief General Manager Subrata Gupta said.

To drive faster transactions and comply with regulatory requirements stipulated by the Reserve Bank, Nabard said it was imperative to bring all the cooperatives onto a technology platform, which would be cost effective and efficient.

The move will also enable the government to transfer subsidy and other payments to account holders based on their Aadhaar numbers.

Of the 201 banks with 6,818 branches under the Nabard Project, 199 banks and 6,795 branches are fully on CBS as on March 31, 2014.

Another 87 branches opened in these banks during the process of implementation, have also been put on CBS. IT services majors TCS and Wipro are implementing the ambitious project across the country.

"For data and disaster recovery centres, Nabard partners with technology providers including NetApp by deploying NetApp's FAS storage systems as a private cloud," NetApp said.

FAS storage systems simplifies data management across the CBS platform, from the local office to the data centre to the cloud.

"We believe that technology has the ability to drive economic growth in the Indian rural sector. We are delighted that NetApp has been able to bring banking closer to many Indians," NetApp President (India and SAARC) Anil Valluri said.