The Hindu Business Line, Hyderabad, February 8, 2001

FNSTAR Inc., the US-based business oriented technology solutions provider catering exclusively to the global financial services industry, has announced the launch of its wholly owned Indian subsidiary - Electronic Financial Network Pvt.Ltd.

The FNSTAR Chief Executive Officer, Mr. Ram Puppala, said that the US company proposes to invest another $4 million in the financial services industry in India.

The US company plans to launch its flagship business solution, FNSTAR IFMS, for the financial services in India.

The product comprehensively addresses the requirements of financial intermediaries in the retail trading of investment products. According to Ram, the product, which was based on a straight through processing (STP) platform, integrates front office, middle office, back office functionalities.

It also has the unique advantage of supporting multiple interaction channels such as WAP, Web, branch office, telephone and sub-broker.

Stating that the business solution could be seamlessly integrated into the customers operations, Mr. Ram said that it would be available as an end-to-end solution or in the form of individual components.

The components include FN Broker, FN Back Office Service Bureau, FN CRM, FN Portal and FN Connect.

The component is a real-time integrated investment platform that provides an end-to-end STP Solution to financial intermediaries in a multi-instrument, multi-exchange, multi-currency and multi-market environment.

FNSTAR's Indian subsidiary has already signed up with five clients to implement the FN Broker business solution and is currently in talks with negotiations at various phases.

According to Mr. Ram, the benefits of FN Broker include customer centric approach, single point end-to-end solution, reduced total cost of ownership, convergence of financial instruments and delivery channels, increased customer satisfaction and loyalty and access to rich domain and technology expertise.

The solution would benefit financial intermediaries, banks, asset management companies, depository participants, financial advisors, content providers and vertical portals, he said.

About FNSTAR:

FNSTAR, headquartered in Englewood, CO, is a global provider of IT solution and services to the Financial services and Telecommunication industry. FNSTAR provides Offshore management consulting services for the telecommunication and financial services industry and a comprehensive suite of integrated software solutions created for retail financial institutions such as banks, brokerages and insurance companies.

FNSTAR's solution has been successfully deployed at tier 1 financial service corporations; and, enables them to offer a complete line of retail investment products while managing supporting activities such as portfolio management, record keeping, regulatory compliance, risk evaluation and management, clearance and settlement.

FNSTAR Integrated Financial Management Solution (fn*IFMS) provides brokerage house, banks with one stop solution brokerage solution for front office, middle office, internet trading, power trading, and correspondent clearing. Financial institutions can replace their legacy systems or expand globally with the integrated brokerage solution. FNSTAR’s cross border trading solution (fn*CrossBorder) enables financial institutions to execute cross borders trade in seamless way taking into account the cross border regulation, compliance, currency and account ownership.

FNSTAR's cross border trading solution (fn*CrossBorder) enables financial institutions to execute cross borders trade in seamless way taking into account the cross border regulation, compliance, currency and account ownership.

FNSTAR offshore management consulting services includes developing a viable offshore strategy for the company, performing program management and IT delivery services. There is a myth that Offshoring delivers dramatic cost savings whenever projects are off shored using the lowest cost vendor. FNSTAR insists that organizations must also take into account the TCO (Total Cost of Ownership), IT budget, business drivers, added cost of offshoring related to knowledge transfer, logistics, data security, service levels, IT processes integration, long term strategy of the application, and long term strategy with the vendor.