- The Alliance's Interoperable Mobile Platform to Enable Financial Institutions to Lower Total Cost of Ownership, Enhance Customer Experience, and Drive Topline Growth

TEANECK, New Jersey and LONDON, Oct. 4, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- Cognizant (NASDAQ: CTSH) and Monitise (LSE: MONI) today announced a global alliance that will help financial institutions embrace the mobile channel of interaction, and develop effective and innovative mobile banking, payments, and commerce solutions.

Combining Cognizant's extensive financial services and mobility expertise with Monitise's leading mobile money platform, the alliance will help global financial institutions speedily respond to the mobile money opportunity that is gathering significant momentum. By leveraging an interoperable platform instead of solutions from disparate products and mobile operating systems, financial institutions will be able to lower the total cost of ownership, and drive newer revenue streams through enhanced mobile adoption.

"Mobile is, without question, the channel of the future," said Alastair Lukies, Chief Executive of Monitise Group. "Our strategy involves extending our Monitise Enterprise Platform to the world's leading banks and payment companies to help them improve and expand their customer relationships. As money becomes increasingly digitized amid exploding demand in the highly-competitive mobile money space, we look forward to collaborating closely with Cognizant to support financial institutions across the world in developing strategic, effective, and timely mobile services."

"Mobile technology has the potential to significantly change consumer-facing industries," said Mahesh Venkateswaran, Managing Director, Social, Mobile, Analytics and Cloud at Cognizant. "As a route to market, it reshapes the channel mix; as a computing and service platform, it redraws the ways in which businesses engage with customers; and as a new technology architecture, it creates opportunities for new products and revenues. The accent in this new world of consumer services is on true personalisation, context-aware systems, and real-time services. Cognizant is committed to helping clients reinvent their businesses using mobile technologies, and we are excited to partner with Monitise to bring the next generation of mobile money solutions to financial institutions."

"Mobile money has arrived and is driving a disruptive shift in channel interaction with consumers, thereby accelerating the replacement of cash and bringing new products to consumers," said Prasad Chintamaneni, Senior Vice President and Global Head of Cognizant's Financial Services practice. "By combining Cognizant's extensive expertise and experience in delivering innovative domain and technology solutions to financial institutions with Monitise's acclaimed platform-based mobile solutions, we are well positioned to help our clients develop compelling mobile banking, payments, and commerce solutions, thereby reducing time-to-market, enhancing customer experience, and driving business growth."

About Cognizant
Cognizant (NASDAQ: CTSH) is a leading provider of information technology, consulting, and business process outsourcing services, dedicated to helping the world's leading companies build stronger businesses. Headquartered in Teaneck, New Jersey (U.S.), Cognizant combines a passion for client satisfaction, technology innovation, deep industry and business process expertise, and a global, collaborative workforce that embodies the future of work. With over 50 delivery centers worldwide and approximately 145,200 employees as of June 30, 2012, Cognizant is a member of the NASDAQ-100, the S&P 500, the Forbes Global 2000, and the Fortune 500 and is ranked among the top performing and fastest growing companies in the world. Visit us online at www.cognizant.com or follow us on Twitter: Cognizant.  

About Monitise
Monitise plc (LSE: MONI) is a leading technology and services company that delivers mobile banking, payments, and commerce networks worldwide. Monitise enables financial institutions and other payments companies to defend and extend their market position by protecting their existing customer relationships and transactions while enabling new forms of mobile commerce revenue.

Monitise powers bank-grade solutions that are delivered on premise, or via cloud services, handling more than a billion transactions and over US$20bn worth of payments and transfers on an annualised basis. Monitise has a global reach and unique set of partners and clients using its completely adaptable platform. More information is available at www.monitise.com.

Forward-Looking Statements
This press release includes statements which may constitute forward-looking statements made pursuant to the safe harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, the accuracy of which are necessarily subject to risks, uncertainties, and assumptions as to future events that may not prove to be accurate. Factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed or implied include general economic conditions and the factors discussed in our most recent Form 10-K and other filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Cognizant undertakes no obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events, or otherwise.

SOURCE Cognizant