Dubai, June 19, 2019: Trade Bank of Iraq (“TBI”) has entered into a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with ESDS SOFTWARE SOLUTION PVT. LTD, India (“ESDS”) to develop financial technology and a cloud platform in Iraq. 
 
Alpen Capital (ME) Limited acted as the sole financial advisor for the transaction between the two firms, which aims to establish a long-term strategic relationship in the field of establishing and managing data centre, cloud solutions and virtualization and disaster recovery hosting solutions, financial technology solutions and other Information Technology services in Iraq. 
 
As per the MoU, TBI will make a strategic investment in ESDS through subscribing to fresh equity shares in the Company.  ESDS, in turn, will subscribe to fresh equity shares in Information Windows for Electronic Payment and Information Technology (“IWEPIT”), a company established by TBI in Iraq for setting up data centre and financial technology service offerings catering to the requirements of TBI and other corporates and financial institutions in Iraq and other neighbouring markets. 
 
ESDS has developed revolutionary technology of vertical auto-scaling in cloud and virtualization. This technology is patented by the United States Patent and Trademark Office (“USPTO”) and Intellectual Property office of United Kingdom (“The IPO”). 
 
In addition to the revolutionary cloud technology, ESDS has proven expertise in setting up data centres and providing customized data centre and other information technology solutions for Banks and Financial Institutions, managed data centre services, managed cloud solutions and data virtualization, disaster recovery hosting and web designing and web hosting services. 
 
ESDS will provide all its services and expertise including the patented data centre software – eNlight 360 to TBI and become an exclusive partner to TBI for the market of Iraq and the neighbouring markets to be mutually agreed between parties. It will also render technical know-how and managed services to IWEPIT. 
 
Faisal Al Haimus, Chairman and President, TBI, said: “This is indeed a landmark association and we believe our combined synergies will allow us to make significant strides in the area of fintech and technology advancement. 
 
“This is the latest in a number of strategic agreements we have made with leading firms in the region to help rebuild, develop and modernise Iraq. 
 
Piyush Somani, Founder MD & CEO, ESDS said: “We at ESDS are highly excited about this partnership with TBI. We consider ourselves lucky to get such an opportunity to transform a country like Iraq, where Cloud Technology and FinTech solutions are desperately needed to bring the country to the level where it should have reached by now. 
 
“ESDS is the only Cloud service provider in the world having Patented Vertical as well as Horizontal auto-scaling technology deployed for Banking Community Cloud having more than 300 Banks in India. We are very much confident of filling up the vacuum which exists in Iraq Technology market.”