Punjab National Bank signs MoU with Cisco Systems to design & implement a new world network backbone connecting its offices across India
NEW DELHI, India - November 14, 2002 - Punjab National Bank (PNB), one of the largest banks in India, today signed an MoU with Cisco Systems to initiate their largest ever IT infrastructure upgradation. The MoU envisages that PNB will work with Cisco Systems to evolve the network design and implement a nation-wide network backbone connecting all its offices across India.
Punjab National Bank is investing in this IT infrastructure upgrade to deliver next-generation banking services to its customers across 300 of its branches by March 2003. This network backbone will be extended across 1000 of Punjab National Bank branches by 2004. This initiative comes in the wake of Punjab National Bank having bagged the 'Best Bank Award' for excellence in banking technology from IDRBT in October 2002.
As a part of the MoU, Cisco Systems will assist Punjab National Bank in understanding and implementing the various technologies available for evolving a robust enterprise-wide network. The converged network infrastructure will allow PNB to standardize all the applications and software it needs to become a one-stop banking services company. Further, the network backbone will be key to driving greater efficiency and manageability between the different offices of the bank across India. The network is expected to facilitate real-time transactions for customers from multiple locations across India.
S S Kohli, Chairman & Managing Director, Punjab National Bank said: "Banking services today are about delivering customer satisfaction - and PNB continues to work towards delivering on our traditional excellence in banking services. We chose Cisco to be our technology provider as they provide us a one-stop networking solution that will integrate all the applications and services that we envision. We are confident that we can benefit not only from Cisco's expertise in networking but also learn from their experience of managing their customers."
Punjab National Bank's network infrastructure will be designed using a 3-tier architecture. The network hub resides in the data centre located at its headquarters in New Delhi. Further, the various branches would be connected to the data centres using new-world routing and switching technologies.
This initiative will be critical to the rollout of new customer services as well as generating greater business efficiencies planned by Punjab National Bank. To drive greater business efficiencies, the bank will deploy a network-wide Central Banking Software (CBS) across its branches for which it has invested in setting up a Data Centre using Cisco Infrastructure. With this network the bank will be able to improve its efficiencies in the area of credit management, loan disbursements, inter office money transfers etc. In addition, PNB plans to initiate Internet Banking services for its customers. PNB will also aggressively look to extend its ATM network from the current base of about 200 branches.
Speaking on the signing of the MoU, Manoj Chugh, President - India & SAARC, Cisco Systems said: "Punjab National Bank has a 107 year history of being a leader among Indian banks in terms of profitability, productivity and innovation. We commend their continued focus at total customer satisfaction by investing in a world-class IT infrastructure. We are sure that we can work together to offer customers of Punjab National Bank the next generation of Banking Services."
About Punjab National Bank
Punjab National Bank (PNB) was set up in 1895 in Lahore - and has the distinction of being the first Indian bank to have been started solely with Indian capital. Today, PNB is a professionally managed bank with a successful track record of over 107 years. The bank has the largest branch network in India, with 3879 branches and 402 extension counters spread throughout the country. PNB was ranked as 515th biggest bank in the world by Bankers Almanac, London in January 2000. For more information, please visit www.pnbindia.com.
About Cisco Systems
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