Sydney-based FNS develops a product called BANCS, which aims to automate every aspect of a bank’s operation, covering both retail and wholesale banking.
BANCS incorporates modules supporting functions such as general ledger accounting, debt collection and collateral management. More than 115 tier-one two banks have installed the system, including the State Bank of India where TCS integrated the BANCS product.
FNS has 320 employees, and is majority-owned by its founders and staff, with a minority stake held by Australia’s largest investment bank, Macquarie Bank. The company expects annual revenue to stay flat at AUD 29m ($22m) in 2005.
TCS is not the first of its peers to acquire in Australia. In December 2003, India’s second largest services vendor Infosys Technologies paid AUD 31m ($23m) to buy Expert Information Services Pty, a Melbourne-based company whose clients included telecoms incumbent Telstra.
Despite their spectacular financial success in recent years, Indian vendors have so far been largely conservative in their M&A activity. However, more takeovers look likely as they look to broaden their service delivery capabilities and build their client-facing operations in order to win higher-value consulting and outsourcing engagements.
The takeover of FNS is TCS’s second significant move in the last two years, following its purchase of insurance business process outsourcing services Phoenix Global Solutions for an undisclosed sum in May 2004.
