Disclosing this, Venkat Vallabhaneni, chief executive, Accurum Inc (the Indian company''s parent outfit), said, "The Mumbai centre will house around 100 employees who are experts in the financial markets and will be set up this year. The Bangalore centre is planned for the next year."

According to Vallabhaneni, Accurum hopes to increase its employee strength to 1,500 in next four to five years. The company presently has 175 employees at its Chennai centre and 125 in the USA.

This apart, Accurum also plans to branch out to UK and the Asia Pacific regions. "We plan to hire 600 employees outside India." He said that the spend on information technology by the global securities industry is around $71.5 billion and nearly 50 per cent of that is shared by outside service providers. It is this chunk that the nine-year old Accurum is looking at.

The US company offers three kinds of services to the players in the capital markets viz., consulting (advice on the kind of IT solutions to be used), IT solutions (offering the appropriate solutions) and research (comprehensive analysis of capital markets). Accurum also provides staffing services to its clients to a limited extent.

According to Vallabhaneni, the proposed Mumbai centre will offer the research services while the software solutions will be taken care by the Chennai and the proposed Bangalore centres.

The $11 million turnover company hopes to close this year with a turnover of $16.2 million. The company's clients include Lehman Brothers, Merril Lynch, Knight Trading, JP Morgan Chase, Ariba and others.

According to VS Narayanan, managing director, Accurum India, the name change will reflect the company's new focus and also to avoid confusion in the market place as there are others with a similar name (Pinnacle).