Wells Fargo, one of the largest US commercial banks, has selected the Basel II software suite of i-Flex Solutions, one of the leading software product companies. Financial details of the deal have not been disclosed by i-Flex.

The Bank of International Settlements, based in Basel, Switzerland, has come out with enhanced capital adequacy norms for commercial banks based on the risk profile of their assets. These new norms, known as Basel II norms following the currently applicable Basel I norms, would be applicable from 2007.

The software suite developed by the Reveleus division of i-Flex provides banks with a complete set of rules, computations, business definitions and underlying data structures to support the computations required under the Basel II accord.

Originally promoted by financial behemoth Citigroup, i-Flex is one of the most successful software product companies in India. The company focuses on products for the financial services industry and its core banking software product is rated as one of the best in the world.

In 2005, ERP software major Oracle acquired the stake held by Citigroup and came out with an open offer to other shareholders. As on 31 December 2005, Oracle owned 43 per cent of i-Flex.

After the stake acquisition by Oracle, i-Flex had announced that Oracle would market i-Flex products to major customers across the globe. The Wells Fargo deal is one of the first such orders.

i-Flex reported a net profit of Rs57.95 crore or Rs7.62 per share for the December quarter as compared to Rs53.13 crore or Rs7.06 per share for the September 2005 quarter. Total revenues increased to Rs297.48 crore from Rs272.82 crore.

FII's held a 17 per cent stake as on 31 December 2005 while domestic institutions held 8 per cent. Retail holding as on that date was at 21 per cent.

i-Flex is trading at Rs1,085.55 (down 0.95 per cent) on the NSE at 2.30 PM today.