Spotlight

Banking on its solutions

Focused on the banking and financial services, Nucleus Software’s expertise lies in the lending/loan segment and cash management, says Nivedan Prakash

Nucleus Software is one of the leading global software product solutions provider focused on banking and financial services domain. For over 20 years, the company has been developing solutions spanning from retail banking to corporate banking, cash management, trade finance, Internet banking, and credit cards.

The company’s Q3 revenue for FY 09 is Rs 84.24 crores and the nine months revenue is Rs 242.59 crores. The revenue as of the year ending March 31, 2008 was Rs 288.72 crores. The growth rate of the company over a period of five years is 29.23%.

“Since our inception, we have developed products to support the whole spectrum of business offerings across—Retail Banking that includes retail core banking specializing in loans and GL; Corporate Banking, which includes cash management and corporate lending; and Investment Banking that includes wealth management,” said Vishnu R Dusad, CEO and MD, Nucleus Software.

The foundation

Nucleus Software started its operations in 1986 and Vishnu R Dusad is one of the founders who has since been steering the course of the company to its current success. Dusad is passionately focused on creating world-class intellectual property for a global market.

Committed to the highest level of quality for its products and services, Nucleus holds the distinction of having four development centers across India and Singapore. And working with strategic technology and business partners worldwide, the company operates out of its global offices from 11 countries, including the UK, the US, Netherlands, UAE, Australia, Japan, Singapore, Hong Kong, Philippines, Korea, and India.

Nucleus started as a services company for customized solutions and it came into limelight after Citibank chose it to provide solutions for retail banking. Then during 1995-96, Nucleus came out with an IPO and started developing products.

Commenting further, Dusad said, “The challenge which I took as an opportunity and finally can proclaim as an achievement was sustaining the product focus during the initial years of our product launch. We were a typical software services business, and transforming ourselves from regular revenue and high profitability business to a business involving substantial investment and uncertainty of revenue was a huge challenge. However, thanks to the support and encouragement of all my colleagues and the guidance from the Board of Directors, we came out successful.”

With a total employee strength of 2042 as on December 31, 2008, Nucleus has over 170 customers and 300 plus product module implementation in over 30 countries and solutions implementation in over 100 countries. It has also built strong business relationships with Fortune 500 companies like Shinsei Bank, American Express, Bank of America, Citigroup, Prudential, General Motors (GMAC) and the Reliance Group.

Line of business

Nucleus Software is very strong on IPR and generates 70% revenue from the IPR led business and services. With the focus on the banking and financial services, the company provides solutions in the lending/ loan segment as well as cash management.

Under the lending/loan segment, it has the FinnOne Suite that provides end-to-end operational excellence to banks and financial institutions in the lending domain. “At this point, to pre-empt, avert and manage financial crisis, the industry needs to focus on technological advanced, functionally enhanced and cost effective solutions. As a niche player and with heavy investment in R&D, Nucleus products are clearly much advanced to address the global financial market,” added Dusad.

As far as cash management is concerned, Nucleus has a solution called Cash@Will that is built on new generation technologies that empowers banks to offer their corporate customers optimized cash management services. Cash@Will drastically improves funds collection and inflow forecasting, payment dispatch and funds utilization.

Moreover, Nucleus has built a strong specialization in specific areas within the banking domain. Across the consumer, corporate and investment banking business, it has aligned development teams, business experts and testing and QA teams on these dimensions. And apart from banking products, it also offers IT consulting, application development, application maintenance, project management and specialized services.

Meanwhile, Nucleus has implemented 300 plus product modules across 150 product customers in over 30 countries with orders and executions in hand for another 100 modules in over 70 additional countries. Also, 500 plus projects have been delivered and running in over 150 countries. Some of the major projects are General Motors, Shinsei Bank, Tokyo Star Bank, and ICICI Bank.

Dusad asserted, “Nucleus envisions that in the year 2010-2011 its products will go alive in 100 countries. We have product implementations in the US, Netherlands, Ghana, Belgium, Nigeria, Italy, Kenya, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Oman, Dubai, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, China, Malaysia, Mongolia, South Korea, Thailand, Hong Kong, New Zealand, Australia, Indonesia, Vietnam, Japan, and Philippines among others.”

Focus on employees

As a product company, Nucleus insists that its employees are technologically sound and have domain knowledge. It ensures that they have the right aptitude as well as attitude through the entire scientific approach involved in the final screening of employees.

At Nucleus, there is immense focus on learning and development of resources. In its endeavor to empower each Nucleite with the required skills and knowledge, the company has launched major self-learning initiative for them to ensure that task is performed with accuracy and at a fast paced through training programs like in-house and SOUL (Self Driven On the Job Unique Learning), NSSP and Lean Management.

Nucleus also encourages further education and provides Higher Education Support and reimbursements for employees to upgrade their skills and knowledge base.

“Our attempt is to create a motivating environment that promotes job satisfaction, thereby developing employees who are motivated, productive and fulfilled,” added Dusad.

Nucleus’ vision

The company wants to be the leading global end-to-end products and solution provider and also a customer-oriented global organization committed to the highest level of quality for its products and services.

Nucleus’ vision is to be a trustworthy, customer-oriented organization with an open and warm environment where everyone is respected, listened to, and encouraged to excel by actively creating and exploring opportunity for the growth of its customers and the organizationas a whole.

nivedan.prakash@expressindia.com