Bangalore: Infosys Technologies Ltd, the Bangalore-based Information Technology (IT) bellwether, will maintain the $ 204 million to $ 207 million revenue guidance for the fourth quarter ending March, despite business uncertainty emerging due to the Iraq crisis, a top company executive said on February 17.

"We had factored in the uncertainty due to the war situation in Iraq when we gave the flat guidance in revenue for quarter four in January. The guidance remains unchanged," Infosys president, managing director and chief executive officer Nandan M Nilekani told reporters.

He said the estimates included revenues from new projects and factors like war.

Asked whether any clients had held back projects due to uncertainty, Nilekani said, "Any time there is a threat of conflict, there is bound to be uncertainty in the market place, not just in our business but in any business."

Nilekani said Infosys business processes outsourcing (BPO) subsidiary Progeon was doing good with a revenue of $ 1.7 million during the last quarter from four clients.

Progeon, which has currrenty 400 employees, he said, had very good opportunity for growth in the BPO space.

Nilekani, however declined to comment on whether Progeon had bagged new clients during the current quarter.

He said outsourcing from India would continue, despite apprehensions in US on concerns of losing jobs due to this.

"When there is economic slowdown and unemployment, certain amount of concern would emerge. It is reasonable to expect those concerns. But, when global companies face challenges for being productive and more profitable, they will certainly look for outsourcing to be better positioned," Nilekani said.

Earlier, he inaugurated the going-live of Finacle core banking solution at Union Bank of India (UBI).

Nilekani said 12 branches of UBI had gone live using Finacle, which was jointly implemented by Wipro Infotech, Base 24 and Infosys.

V K Khanna, general manager, Information Technology department, Union Bank of India, said by March 2003, 20 banks would be networked.

The total bank automation project was Rs 150 crore, he said.

"We will network 100 branches by the end of next fiscal and 500 branches by March 2005," Khanna said.

He said UBI will set up 250 ATMs by March 2004 and over 1,000 ATMs were planned to be installed in future.

Khanna said UBI was looking at Hyderabad, Chennai or Bangalore to set up a disaster recovery centre.

PTI