Posted on 2009 under Communications |
3
Sep
Nokia (NYSE: NOK) used the opening day of its two-day Nokia World gathering in Stuttgart to announce a widget that lets mobile Facebook users add location data and maps to their status updates. It’s a lifecasting plugin for the existing beta Ovi Maps app and uses handsets’ built-in GPS.
But it is a pretty modest step, given Nokia’s previous grand LBS announcements like Point & Find, which hasn’t yet been delivered to the mass market. Nokia’s previously heralded SoLo (social location) idea, which would combine the phonebook with location data, is again due to be discussed.
In his keynote, CEO Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo addressed onlookers’ criticisms that Nokia has been too trigger-happy with its announcements: “The critics have been right,” he said, promising all services previewed at this Nokia World will be available to try within 48 hours.
This year, Nokia finds itself with falling market share, a worsening image in the US and behind Apple’s curve on smartphone UI innovation – but it still has the opportunity to deliver location-based services to the masses.
“We know we still have a lot of work to do,” Kallasvuo said, “but we have a solid plan in place … our ambition is nothing less than to create the biggest delivery platform for services for mobile …
“Piece by piece, we are building a new Nokia. Is it an up-hill climb? Of course it is, and we still have a way to go – but we at Nokia relish the role and challenge of the underdog.”
Although the latest flagship consumer handset, the N97, has received poor reviews, Kallasvuo said it was selling at a faster rate than its popular N95 predecessor. Future Nokia devices will come in three categories, he said: “Phones, smartphones and mobile computers.”
Nokia World is giving the handset maker a chance to further discuss the Booklet 3G netbook (full specs, €575 price), N900 smartphone and Nokia Money announcements already made in the last two weeks.
But it also announced two new touchscreen music phones, the X3 and X6, which will be a Comes With Music device, and an N97 mini, a slimmed-down version. Release.
Nokia Messaging is getting an upgrade to facilitate status updates to social services.
Posted on 2009 under Communications, News |
28
Aug
NOTE: Please use the company’s name as 3i Infotech ONLY and not as 3i or 3i Info
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State Bank of India, 3i Infotech launch India’s online financial inclusion model for rural India
Mumbai – August 28, 2009 – 3i Infotech Foundation (3i Infotech) has joined hands with the largest bank in the country, State Bank of India to provide revolutionary Kiosk Banking facilities to the rural citizens of India. 3i Infotech Foundation is a National Business Correspondent for State Bank of India, and shall leverage the I-SERV stores of 3i Infotech across rural India to provide banking services to the hitherto unbanked population of the country. These services include opening of Accounts (No frills, Savings, Current, etc) as well as Cash transactions, apart from facilitating such services like various types of Loans (Crop, Home, Automobiles, Business loans, etc.), and deposits (Fixed and Recurring Deposits).
The tie-up, which will provide SBI access to over 6,000 villages in Tamil Nadu alone through more than 2,000 I-SERV stores of 3i Infotech (apart from various other states where it will be gradually rolled out) over a course of time, will go a long way in achieving the goal of financial inclusion in the country, especially in rural India. This model, whereby, the I-SERV stores of 3i Infotech become a virtual bank for rural citizens, holds promise of taking banking to the remotest corners of the country.
The State Bank of India has been at the fore-front of the technological developments in this area and has been able to successfully develop a simple and easy-to-use internet based banking transaction model. This model will involve the use of biometric devices which will enable verification and authentication of the identity of customers through recognition of their fingerprints. It will therefore enable a rural customer to carry out the aforementioned banking transactions at the remotely located Kiosk, instead of having to travel several miles to the nearest bank branch.
Mr. J Chandrasekaran, Chief General Manager, State Bank of India, Chennai Circle said, “SBI has pioneered the use of technology to build an online financial inclusion model, thus simplifying the processes and cost required to reach out to the remotest corners. SBI is happy to partner with 3i Infotech Foundation to offer the banking services through their I-SERV stores into remote rural India”.
“3i Infotech is committed to utilizing technology to add value to rural lives. The I-SERV initiative of 3i Infotech brings together a plethora of services across spaces like education, agriculture, banking, travel, and insurance to the rural citizens – all aimed at enriching rural lives. With its emphasis on introducing such services, for rural customers in particular, I-SERV is proud to bring the SBI Kiosk Banking Initiative to Tamil Nadu. We are sure that this initiative will scale-up rapidly and bring real value to a large section of citizens in Rural Tamil Nadu”, said Mr. Anirudh Prabhakaran, Executive Director & President, South Asia, 3i Infotech.
For more information, please contact:
M.B. Battliwala
Senior General Manager
3i Infotech Limited
Tel: +91 22 39145560
E-mail: battliwala.mb@3i-infotech.com
Rishar Ravi Raj
Account Manager
Adfactors PR Pvt Ltd.
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Posted on 2009 under Communications, News |
28
Aug
Logica’s messaging hub, FASTWIRE Open, benchmarks at record five million messages per day
Benchmark enables banks to reduce costs and manage business expansion
August 28, 2009: Logica ,a leading IT and business services company, today announced the results of a high-performance benchmark test carried out on FASTWIRE Open, Logica’s messaging hub, powered by IBM processors. The hub can now process over five million SWIFT Fin messages per day. The test was carried out in conjunction with a tier one banking client, which is one of world’s largest users of SWIFT – demonstrating the hub’s ability to support global banks.
FASTWIRE Open can scale to support the future growth of user banks, enabling them to not only reduce operational and network costs but also to take advantage of high throughput and adaptability to meet their demanding and growing requirements.
“Banks need to gain greater efficiencies if they are to preserve profit margins, given escalating payments volumes and sustained revenue pressure,” said Andy Schmidt, research director at TowerGroup. “Centralised messaging hubs that are scalable and integrated give banks the flexibility and control that their payments businesses require. This allows banks to achieve savings through reduced messaging costs – savings that can be passed on to clients.”
Tim Brew, director of global financial products at Logica, commented: “Payments volumes are increasing exponentially as global banks continue to grow, either organically or through M&A activity. Our high performing financial messaging hub enables banks to reduce costs by consolidating their multiple systems onto regional or global hubs. The client that participated in this test has proven that its future FASTWIRE Open-based messaging platform will support significant growth in its messaging traffic. The solution can clearly support our clients’ business expansion, but it also enables banks to reduce the overall cost per message and handle the ever increasing occurrence of unexpected volume peaks in messages.”
The benchmark test was undertaken by Logica at IBM’s performance testing facility in Montpellier, France, during June 2009. FASTWIRE Open, Logica’s messaging hub, achieved a throughput of up to 200 messages per second, while actively using only 16 processors, exceeding the target of 150 messages per second.
For the test, the system processed SWIFT format messages while concurrently managing day-to-day activities such as archiving and database replication. The platform used an Oracle 10g database, operating with Oracle RAC and Dataguard, and was based on IBM 64-Core Power6 5GHz Based Power 595.
- ends-
NOTES TO EDITORS
About Logica
Logica is a leading IT and business services company, employing 40,000 people. It provides business consulting, systems integration, and IT and business process outsourcing services. Logica works closely with its customers to release their potential – enabling change that increases their efficiency, accelerates growth and manages risk. It applies its deep industry knowledge, technical excellence and global delivery expertise to help its customers build leadership positions in their markets. Logica is listed on both the London Stock Exchange and Euronext (Amsterdam) (LSE: LOG; Euronext: LOG). More information is available at www.logica.com.
About Logica’s payments expertise
Logica has more than 30 years of experience in delivering payments products to the largest financial institutions. Logica is the only company to provide an end-to-end payments hub enabling banks to move from duplicated, siloed payments systems to a modern hub environment. Logica’s All Payments Solution (LAPS) can process the full range of payment types (retail, domestic, international, urgent/timed, single and mass payments) within a single deployment. It is fully SEPA compliant and live, supporting SEPA in over 10 countries. LAPS is the only payments hub capable of supporting SEPA transactions beyond current domestic-level requirements. It can provide any global bank with a single consolidated Europe-wide SEPA deployment for when payments traffic merges in the near future from domestic to SEPA. Furthermore, this massively scalable and high performing solution enables banks to optimise hardware utilisation and reduce infrastructure costs. For further information, visit http://www.logica.com/payments/400012772
About FASTWIRE Open
FASTWIRE Open is Logica’s high-end, network independent messaging platform. Based on Logica’s proven service-oriented open architecture, it delivers high performance and reliability on modern low cost infrastructures. It processes and routes all message types including payments and securities messages in SWIFT, ISO, XML and proprietary formats – enabling banks to choose the most cost effective route saving on unnecessary transaction fees.
Media contacts:
Sabrina Mukund
Logica India
+91 96633 81233
sabrina.mukund@logica.com
Tanuja Singh
Genesis Burson-Marsteller
+91 99863 62428
tanuja.singh@bm.com
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Posted on 2009 under Communications |
27
Aug
Nokia (NYSE: NOK) announced a new service today called Nokia Money, which will allow people without bank accounts and credit cards to access financial services, so they can easily do things such as pay utility bills or send money to another person via a phone. Release.
The service has a huge potential target market given that mobile phone ownership significantly exceeds bank account usage in some countries. For instance, there are more than 4 billion mobile phone users and only 1.6 billion bank accounts in the world. Nokia did not say how the business would work, and whether it would receive a portion of each transaction, much like PayPal. The Nokia Money service will be developed by Obopay, a company Nokia invested in earlier this year. Nokia will show off the service at its own Nokia World even on Sept. 2 and 3 in Stuttgart, Germany, and will launch it gradually to selected markets beginning in early 2010.
Mobile payments are clearly seen as the next step for delivering financial services to hundreds of millions of people, who don’t have access to banks on a regular basis. Often times, its difficult because of geography—people are not close to urban centers where banks can afford to have physical branches. However, it sounds like Nokia will have to build up some infrastructure, too. In a release, it said it is building a wide network of “Nokia Money agents, where consumers can deposit money in or withdraw cash from their accounts.” It’s unclear if that’s a physical location, however, it does make sense that deposits will have to be made in person to some extent.
Nokia also said the service will be open and interoperable with other payment services as well, which may help with that burden.
Related
Posted on 2009 under Communications, News |
26
Aug
Intuit and Web 18′s www.moneycontrol.com to Provide Personal Finance Management Solutions in India
Partnership Focuses on Revolutionizing the Financial Lives
of Consumers with Online Solutions
Wednesday, Aug. 26, 2009: Intuit Inc. and Web18 have signed a three-year partnership to provide a new financial management tool to Indian consumers on India’s leading financial portal Moneycontrol.com. ‘Intuit® Money Manager’ will be Intuit’s first consumer offering in India. The beta version will initially be available for customers of Moneycontrol.com who have opted in for this early trial program. It will be extended to all the customers of Moneycontrol.com in the near future.
Intuit is a leading global developer of business and personal finance management solutions, and Moneycontrol.com is the leading financial portal from Web18, the online and mobile arm of Network18. The partnership results from Intuit’s Active Partner Strategy of working with premiere and trusted partners in India to provide easy-to-use solutions for the country’s consumers.
‘Intuit® Money Manager’ is an innovative personal finance tool that offers consumers a smarter way to plan, track and grow their money for the future.
Commenting on the partnership, Umang Bedi, Managing Director, Intuit India – Global Business Division, said, “Moneycontrol.com has earned the reputation of being a key destination for Indian users and the synergy we bring together through our partnership will be the first of its kind in the industry.”
Talking about the new product, Mr. Bedi said, “‘Intuit® Money Manager’ has been made in India, for India and enables our customers to save money and achieve their financial goals. The solution has been developed based on information gleaned from numerous studies on the financial lifestyles of Indians. Some of their key pain-points were logging into multiple websites to track their finances and monitoring their expenses, goals, and savings. This is our first offering for India and through this we’re aiming to change the way personal finance is managed in India. We are currently undergoing various trials and are confident that it will soon be the first choice of every Indian consumer.”
Joyson Thomas, Chief Operating Officer, Web18 said, “We are delighted with this strategic partnership and are excited about the opportunities that will arise through this relationship. We have been the premier end-to-end business and finance portal for Indian consumers and investors, and Intuit is a leading brand in the personal finance management space. This partnership will give our customers a 360 degree view of their finances. We are proud to be associated with a leader that has changed the way personal finance is managed, and we see a lot of value creation for our users through this partnership.”
Intuit intends to announce other major partners in the months ahead. Following a series of trials with selected customers, Intuit expects to release ‘Intuit® Money Manager’ in the fall of 2009.
About Web 18 and Moneycontrol.com
Web 18 is the Internet and Mobile arm of Network 18, India’s leading Media conglomerate. It is India’s fastest growing internet company with leading portals such as MoneyControl.com, Cricketnext.com, IBNLive.com, Buzz18.com and Josh18.com. The recently launched In.com has rapidly grown to become India’s second largest horizontal portal.
Web18′s moneycontrol,com is Asia's largest and the world's second largest financial and business portal. Moneycontrol, with around 350 million page views every month, boasts five million users and 2.8 million registered users seeking information and guidance for all their financial needs and queries. This end-to-end financial vertical offers real time coverage of all the market movements, key expert insights and the intrinsic dynamics between the various market participants.
About Intuit Inc.
Intuit Inc. is a leading provider of business and financial management solutions for small and mid-sized businesses; financial institutions, including banks and credit unions; consumers and accounting professionals. Its flagship products and services, including QuickBooks®, Quicken® and TurboTax® software, simplify small business management and payroll processing, personal finance, and tax preparation and filing. ProSeries® and Lacerte® are Intuit's leading tax preparation software suites for professional accountants. The company's financial institutions division, anchored by Digital Insight, provides on-demand banking services to help banks and credit unions serve businesses and consumers with innovative solutions.
Founded in 1983, Intuit had annual revenue of $3.2 billion in its fiscal year 2009. The company has approximately 8,200 employees with major offices in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom and other locations. Intuit is listed on the NASDAQ stock market under the symbol INTU. More information is available at www.intuit.co.in.
Intuit was named the “World’s Most Admired Company” by Fortune Magazine in 2009, in addition to being named “America's Most Admired Software Company,” from 2005 – 2008. In January, Intuit was named to Fortune’s “100 Best Companies to Work For” list for the eighth consecutive year.
About Intuit Global Business Division
The Intuit Global Business Division is an innovative, high-performance, growth business that aims to promote products and services that revolutionize millions of lives in India. Building upon Intuit’s legacy of customer-driven innovation, Intuit GBD promotes local solutions that will serve large, unmet or underserved needs among individuals and small business owners. Intuit GBD has employees located in Bangalore.
Intuit GBD is a division of Intuit. More information is available at www.intuit.co.in
For More Information, Please contact:
For more information, please contact:
Vidyuth Srinivasan – +919663314113
Intuit India – Global Business Division
Priyanka Kalia – +919980600561
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