Tata Consultancy Services, the leading global technology solutions company announced that its new global payments processing solution for banks QUARTZ® Payments, has started witnessing significant traction with global banks like Barclays International and First Rand Bank of South Africa opting for the solution.

Barclays Africa, a division of the International Operations of Barclays spanning 25 countries, has successfully implemented QUARTZ® Payments for it's corporate business needs. QUARTZ® is being used by Barclays Africa as a model implementation to help the bank innovate in the African Market and expected to act as core solution for its emerging market business.

"QUARTZ® architecture was scalable, robust and open to integration. The standard solution provided a solid platform that will allow us to build competitive advantage through all channels as well as through greater STP in back office processes. The TCS team has shown unrelenting passion and commitment in ensuring the implementation is a success," said Jarret West-Evans, Chief Technology Officer, Barclays Africa and Middle East.

The multi-entity, multi-currency and multi-lingual features of QUARTZ® Payments facilitate one centralised implementation, catering to the needs of the bank and its subsidiaries, and provides a real time global infrastructure for payments processing. The solution offers extensive automation with end-to-end Straight Through Processing (STP) of payments.

"We are pleased to see that Barclays Africa is now live with QUARTZ. This is coming after successful implementation at Societe Generale for two countries in Europe. This demonstrates the flexibility of the solution to cater to multiple markets as we continue to work with our customers in enriching the functionality and robustness of the solution," said N. G. Subramaniam, vice-president —- banking practice, Tata Consultancy Services.

QUARTZ® Payments core modules consist of Payments & Funds Transfer, Business Relations, Financial Instruments, Market Information, Pricing Services, Bank Structure, Accounts Management and Risk Management and can be customised to meet bank's requirements.

The QUARTZ® EAI Manager provides the necessary framework for integrating the solution with the external applications, in-house systems and legacy applications. It will provide a data translation and seamless channel integration framework and facilitate Straight Through Processing (STP) with host systems through automatic routing of recognised message formats and instructions.

About TCS' Banking and Financial Services Practice
TCS Banking practice has worked with some of the best banks worldwide, providing them mission-critical solutions and services for more than two decades. Working with a host of blue-chip clients globally has enriched our experience and assets, which enables the banking practice to provide valuable and time-to-market solutions.

QUARTZ® software has been jointly developed by Tata Consultancy Services Limited Mumbai, India and TKS-Teknosoft SA, Trelex, Switzerland.
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About Tata Consultancy Services Ltd (TCS)
Tata Consultancy Services Limited (TCS) is the world leading information technology consulting, services, business process outsourcing and engineering services organisation that envisioned and pioneered the adoption of the flexible global business practices that today enable companies to operate more efficiently and produce more value. TCS achieved this by creating and perfecting a unique method of global deployment and delivery of high quality, high value services and products in IT consulting and business process outsourcing. Known as the "Global Delivery Model," this strategic services delivery concept has reshaped the IT services industry.

More than 75 per cent of TCS customers reward the company's reliability, passion, creativity, and unique ability to handle the broadest range of their IT needs by continually extending and deepening their partnerships with TCS. With over 40,000 of the world's best trained IT consultants located in 33 countries, TCS is uniquely positioned to deliver its flexible world class services seamlessly to any location. TCS reported consolidated revenues of $2.24 billion (U.S.) in the fiscal year 2004-2005. The company is listed on the National Stock Exchange and Bombay Stock Exchange in India. For more information: www.tcs.com