Kindle Banking Systems was a banking solutions company that originated from a bespoke banking systems project in 1979 for the Irish merchant bank Ansbacher Bank. Its main product was a modular banking system known as Bankmaster. The system originally ran on the
ICL
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Companies and organizations
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hardware platform ― the relationship with the UK-based computer manufacturer facilitated Kindle establishing a significant customer base in
Asia
Asia ( , ) is the largest continent in the world by both land area and population. It covers an area of more than 44 million square kilometres, about 30% of Earth's total land area and 8% of Earth's total surface area. The continent, which ...
and
Africa
Africa is the world's second-largest and second-most populous continent after Asia. At about 30.3 million km2 (11.7 million square miles) including adjacent islands, it covers 20% of Earth's land area and 6% of its total surfac ...
.
Kindle is regarded as a company of note, as it was the first high-tech Irish company which achieved the status of world leader in its field.
History
Kindle's main product Bankmaster, was a modular System25 Assembler-based banking system and started development in 1979 as a bespoke banking systems project in the Irish merchant bank Ansbacher Bank.
The company was originally called MA Systems, then Triple A Systems before finally settling on Kindle Banking Systems. The driving force behind the design and development of Bankmaster was Cian Kinsella. Led by MD and founder Tony Kilduff, the company had an impressive sales record developing many lasting customer relationships in the UK, Africa,
India
India, officially the Republic of India, is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, seventh-largest country by area; the List of countries by population (United Nations), most populous country since ...
, Asia and
Latin America
Latin America is the cultural region of the Americas where Romance languages are predominantly spoken, primarily Spanish language, Spanish and Portuguese language, Portuguese. Latin America is defined according to cultural identity, not geogr ...
.
By 1987, according to the RBS Market Report, there were 170 sites operating Bankmaster worldwide.
Standard Chartered Bank
Standard Chartered PLC is a British multinational bank with operations in wealth management, Wholesale banking, corporate and investment banking, and treasury services. Despite being headquartered in the United Kingdom, it does not conduct retai ...
was the largest user of Bankmaster ― the company formed a spin-off joint venture with Kindle specifically to support its own deployments.
State Bank of India
State Bank of India (SBI) is an Indian Multinational corporation, multinational Public sector undertakings in India, public sector bank and financial service body headquartered in Mumbai. It is the largest bank in India with a 23% market shar ...
deployed the branch platform, Branchpower to 2000 branches throughout India. The system allowed branches to operate in an off-line mode ― this made it popular with retail banks in countries where the communications infrastructure was poor. The Bank of England and eight other
central banks
A central bank, reserve bank, national bank, or monetary authority is an institution that manages the monetary policy of a country or monetary union. In contrast to a commercial bank, a central bank possesses a monopoly on increasing the monet ...
(mainly in Africa) used the treasury modules of Bankmaster.
In 1991, Kindle was acquired by a rival company; ACT, and was renamed as ACT Kindle. ACT was subsequently acquired by