Banks Accelerate Blockchain Investment Reveals Infosys Finacle and LTP study

Infosys Finacle, part of EdgeVerve Systems, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Infosys (NYSE: INFY), along with its partner Let’s Talk Payments (LTP), today released a global survey report - "Blockchain Technology: From Hype to Reality"”. According to the report, over 80 percent of bankers surveyed expect to see commercial adoption of the technology by 2020, with nearly half (50 percent) of the financial institutions already investing or planning to invest during 2017. This announcement builds on the recent announcement by Emirates NBD and ICICI Bank on the deployment of blockchain technology in international remittances and trade finance.

The aim of the study, which included a survey of more than 100 financial services professionals, was to understand the sentiment of blockchain technology in the following areas:

• The technology’s current understanding in the banking industry
• Adoption strategies and investments being pursued
• The opportunities and challenges that the industry is dealing with

Highlights:

• 33 percent of respondents expect to see commercial blockchain adoption by 2018, while a majority (nearly 50 percent) see mainstream adoption by 2020
• According to the survey, the average investment in blockchain projects in 2017 is expected to be about USD 1 million
• Majority of banks, about 69 percent, are experimenting with permissioned blockchain
• About 50 percent of the banks are either working with a FinTech start-up or technology company to augment their blockchain capabilities, whereas another 30 percent are opting for the consortium model
• According to the study, 51 percent of executives driving the blockchain initiatives are either Chief Technology Officers or Chief Innovation Officers
• The study confirms that the blockchain roll out would be prioritized in business areas where it can significantly improve transparency, automate processes across enterprises as well as reduce settlement and transaction time
• The study further revealed that the top five use cases that are expected to go to production are: cross border payments, digital identity management, clearing and settlement, letter of credit process and syndication of loans. These use cases scored more than 3.2 on a scale of one to five, wherein one being the least prioritized use case for commercial adoption and five being most prioritized

The full report can be downloaded here.

Sanat Rao, Chief Business Officer and Global Head, Finacle, said, "This research reaffirms our belief that the blockchain technology has potential to help banks reimagine banking processes. The technology can help banks automate inter-organization processes, significantly improve transparency and reset existing operational benchmarks. Several progressive organizations have already executed pilots to validate these propositions. We believe, in the coming quarters, the industry will experience greater momentum towards rolling out lab-pilots to real-life use cases."

Survey methodology

LTP surveyed 100 business and technology leaders from 75 institutions ranging from regional banks to multinational banks on behalf of Infosys Finacle.

About Infosys Finacle

Finacle is the industry-leading universal banking solution from EdgeVerve Systems, a wholly owned subsidiary of Infosys. The solution helps financial institutions develop deeper connections with stakeholders, power continuous innovation and accelerate growth in the digital world. Today, Finacle is the choice of banks across 94 countries and serves over 848 million customers – estimated to be nearly 16.5 percent of the world’s adult banked population.

Finacle solutions address the core banking, e-banking, mobile banking, CRM, payments, treasury, origination, liquidity management, Islamic banking, wealth management, and analytics needs of financial institutions worldwide. Assessment of the top 1000 world banks reveals that banks powered by Finacle enjoy 50 percent higher returns on assets, 30 percent higher returns on capital, and 8.1 percent points lesser costs to income than others.

To know more, visit www.finacle.com

About EdgeVerve Systems Ltd.

EdgeVerve Systems, a wholly owned subsidiary of Infosys, develops innovative software products and offers them on premise or as cloud-hosted business platforms. Our products help businesses develop deeper connections with stakeholders, power continuous innovation and accelerate growth in the digital world. We power our clients’ growth in rapidly evolving areas like banking, digital marketing, interactive commerce, distributive trade, credit servicing, customer service and enterprise buying.

Today EdgeVerve products are used by global corporations across financial services, insurance, retail and CPG, life sciences, manufacturing, and telecom. Finacle, our universal banking solution, is the choice of financial institutions across 94 countries and serves over 848 million customers – estimated to be nearly 16.5 percent of the world’s adult banked population.

To know more, visit www.edgeverve.com

About LTP

LTP is a global research and content platform for innovation in emerging financial services and commerce, now broadly called FinTech. LTP has been at the forefront of bringing the most current topics and strategies for FinTech innovation to a cross-section of stakeholders via its proprietary research, the daily industry newsletter and MEDICI, a FinTech discovery and engagement platform. LTP products and services are designed to provide deep domain-specific depth and comprehensive coverage in an easy-to-consume format for today's rapidly changing open innovation environment.

MEDICI, powered by LTP, allows FinTech start-ups, banks & other financial institutions, investors and strategic stakeholders to discover engage and interact with each other on a rich, contextual, digital platform that is curated by LTP analysts. MEDICI is a subscription-based offering to the industry and is currently available by invitation only.

LetsTalkPayments.com is the fastest growing global destination for news, insights and data-driven research in emerging financial services. LTP defines and embraces the New Global FinTech. With engaging interactive content covering daily news, analytical opinion, podcasts, webinars, interviews, research reports and even e-books, LTP has been called the ‘watering hole’ for industry insiders, business leaders, FinTech investors and entrepreneurs.

Contributors to LTP are spread out globally to publish stories as they unfold, from various segments of this interconnected space, ranging from consumer financial services, lending & banking to mobile- and cloud-enabled payments & commerce, also including the latest shopping-related innovations in advertising, fashion technology, smart devices and wearables. LTP subscribers rate its content as fiercely independent, thought provoking and always up-to-date, in a way that continues to inform, engage and inspire every day.

To join the 50,000 subscribers of the daily newsletter who will visit LTP 5 million times this year, subscribe for free now: https://letstalkpayments.com/subscribe/.

Safe Harbor

Certain statements in this press release concerning our future growth prospects are forward-looking statements regarding our future business expectations intended to qualify for the 'safe harbor' under the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, which involve a number of risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those in such forward-looking statements. The risks and uncertainties relating to these statements include, but are not limited to, risks and uncertainties regarding fluctuations in earnings, fluctuations in foreign exchange rates, our ability to manage growth, intense competition in IT services including those factors which may affect our cost advantage, wage increases in India, our ability to attract and retain highly skilled professionals, time and cost overruns on fixed-price, fixed-time frame contracts, client concentration, restrictions on immigration, industry segment concentration, our ability to manage our international operations, reduced demand for technology in our key focus areas, disruptions in telecommunication networks or system failures, our ability to successfully complete and integrate potential acquisitions, liability for damages on our service contracts, the success of the companies in which Infosys has made strategic investments, withdrawal or expiration of governmental fiscal incentives, political instability and regional conflicts, legal restrictions on raising capital or acquiring companies outside India, and unauthorized use of our intellectual property and general economic conditions affecting our industry. Additional risks that could affect our future operating results are more fully described in our United States Securities and Exchange Commission filings including our Annual Report on Form 20-F for the fiscal year ended March 31, 2016. These filings are available at www.sec.gov. Infosys may, from time to time, make additional written and oral forward-looking statements, including statements contained in the company's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission and our reports to shareholders. In addition, please note that any forward-looking statements contained herein are based on assumptions that we believe to be reasonable as of the date of this press release. The company does not undertake to update any forward-looking statements that may be made from time to time by or on behalf of the company unless it is required by law.

Media contacts:

For further information, please contact: PR_Global@infosys.com