Polar banks on N Ireland, sets up centre

Chennai, Apr 13 (UNI) Polaris Software Lab CEO Arun Jain today signed an agreement with British Minister and Secretary of State for Northern Ireland Peter Hain for setting up a banking and financial application certification centre at Belfast at an investment of ten million pounds.

Talking to reporters here, Mr Jain said the new centre, based at the Northern Ireland Science Park in Titanic Quarter, will be developed in three phases with assistance from the Invest Northern Ireland (Invest NI).

Beginning as a certification centre providing independent quality assurance software testing, it will also be a software development and business continuity centre where inhouse software development activities will be introduced after upgrading communication infrastructure.

The third phase would focus on the provision of round-the-clock technical support for customers in Europe.

At the end of the third phase, Belfast would become a full-fledged near shore software development centre and Mercury-certified banking and financial application centre.

Mr Peter Hain said the Centre would be a gateway for Polaris to enter the rest of the European market, which offered tremendous potential for Indian businesses to go global and invest in Belfast.

Stating Polaris was focussed on becoming the global market leader in financial and banking software, Mr Jain said the centre will enhance Northern Ireland's reputation as a European software centre of excellence and its developing position in the global financial services industry.

''About 1.5 million pounds will be offered as grant by Invest NI to Polaris for the project which was the first greenfield software investment by an Indian technology company in Ireland.

''It will make a significant contribution to government initiatives to transform Northern Ireland into a world class knowledge-led and innovation driven economy,'' he added.

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