Under this mandate, Gartner will work closely with the Yes Bank team to develop an IT blueprint in accordance with the bank''s business strategy, technology architecture and also build operations, governance and organisational models for the bank''s innovative technology initiatives.

Announcing this appointment, Rana Kapoor, MD & CEO, Yes Bank said, "In Gartner, we have the best of breed partner with excellent global knowledge and experience of both IT and financial services domains to develop an effective IT, channels and networking strategy. This integrated approach will facilitate rapid launch of multiple products across business segments and enable customers to access them conveniently through a variety of ''high touch'' interfaces."

John Weste, managing vice president, Gartner Asia Pacific, said, "We are delighted to partner an evolving high quality, knowledge based, technology-driven bank. We will leverage our proprietary research, vendor intelligence, process management knowledge and the best IT benchmarking database to develop a best of class IT strategy Yes Bank in line with its business plans."

Yes Bank is the outcome of the professional commitment of its Indian promoters, Ashok Kapur and Rana Kapoor, to establish a high quality, technology driven, state-of-the-art private Indian Bank catering to "emerging India".

Rabobank, Netherlands, a part of the Rabobank Group, which is the only ''AAA'' rated private bank in the world, has 20 per cent of Yes Bank''s financial ownership. Three other high-quality institutional private equity investors — CVC-Citigroup-New York, AIF Capital-Hong Kong, and ChrysCapital-San Francisco have 25 per cent collective ownership.

Yes Bank is commencing operations from its Nehru Centre corporate headquarters in Mumbai, and aspires to be a leading financial player with a focused approach. It plans to gradually target wholesale banking, financial markets, corporate and transactional banking, retail and private banking business lines across the country.