TRADE MISSION TO INDIA
21 - 25 FEBUARY 2005

The London Chamber of Commerce and UK Trade and Investment is organising a Trade Mission to the prestigious Gartner BFSI Summit in Mumbai on 24 February 2005 and invite your company to join the mission. A contribution of £550 towards travel costs is available to eligible companies joining this mission.

You will also be provided with a report with an Overview of the Indian Banking Industry with the contact information of some key decision makers in the Indian Financial Services Sector.

At 8.2% GDP growth last fiscal, the Indian economy is one of the fastest growing in the world and services now contribute 51% to India's GDP. Services are also the fastest growing segment in the Indian economy. Within the Services sector, Financial Services is growing rapidly on the back of increased liberalisation and entry of Multinationals.

The BFSI segment continues to be the hotbed of technology spends in the domestic market, with state-owned banks topping the league. For instance, in the last fiscal, State Bank of India, India's largest bank with over 9,000 branches invested $100 million in the IT architecture project and another $40 million for a trade finance project.

INDIAN DOMESTIC IT MARKET FOR BFSI SOLUTIONS

Unlike the much-publicised India's software exports, the domestic market has been lagging behind. But in 2003-2004 the domestic IT market grew by a phenomenal 24% from a mere 9% in 2002-03. The packaged software market alone grew by 15%. For the first time ever, the growth of the Indian domestic market caught up with the rapid growth of the export segment.

In 2003-04, IT spend by India Inc. grew by 5.5%, short of the projected 7% but the bulk of the spend was by Indian banks. The Indian banking sector alone spent $186 million on IT, the most for any vertical. Computerisation and Connectivity is driving IT spend by banks. Estimates suggest a growth of 25% in IT spend in the year 2004-05. IT spend by Indian Financial Institutions was in the following:

· Infrastructure: Servers, Desktops and Storage
· Networking
· Core-Banking Application
· Other Banking Applications
· Other Tech for Statutory Compliance
· Disaster-Recovery and Readiness
· ATM Deployment
· Risk Management
· STP Framework
· Trade Finance Applications
· CRM
· Business Intelligence
· IT Consultancy and Services

Real Time Gross Settlement (RTGS) presents a big opportunity for British companies. UK's Logica won a £1 million RTGS contract from India's central Bank, the Reserve Bank of India. RTGS, when operational, is expected to enable 205 Indian banks and financial institutions interface directly. Misys is another UK company that has made deep inroads into the Indian market by signing deals with State Bank of India and Bank of India.

An overview of the Indian IT Industry and the opportunities that it presents is available on www.uktradeinvest.gov.uk/india. The link also has an overview of the Indian Financial Services Sector.

While the Indian software industry is spread across a few key cities, the financial institutions are mostly located in Mumbai, India's Financial and Commercial capital. The Garnet BFSI Summit is one of the events where this rather large and diverse industry meets, providing a concentrated and focused opportunity to meet key-decision makers in the Indian financial services industry. A few meetings can be arranged and mission members will be free to include other Indian cities in their individual itineraries.

To register an interest in joining this Trade Mission, please contact Claire Paye on cpaye@londonchamber.co.uk or call her on 020 7203 1827.