HDFC Ltd chairman Deepak Parekh signed the memorandum of understanding here on Wednesday to seal the strategic alliance with his counterpart Lee Kwok Cheong, chairman of SESAMi.com private Ltd, in the presence of minister of information technology Pramod Mahajan and Singapore minister of state for communications and information technology Lim Swee Say.

Later, addressing a press conference, Parekh said that the new company SESAMi.com (India) Limited will market a range of business-to-business solutions like e-procurement and on line auction service from April 1, 2000. "It will also set up a real-time trading portal from February 15," he said.The new company, SESAMi. com (India) Limited will start offering commercial services within three months. It will be floated with a paid up capital of Rs 15 crore.

The Singapore company will take 60 per cent stake and the rest 40 per cent will be divided equally between HDFC Limited and HDFC Bank.

Parekh said that Singapore Telecom will apply to the Foreign Investment Promotion Board (FIPB) for infusing its capital share in the next 15 days.The new company will market SESAMi.com's comprehensive range of Business-to-Business e-commerce solutions. Companies operating on the Indian subcontinent will be able to trade locally and at the same time, have access to the global trading market place via SESAMi.NET.

Aditya Puri, managing director of HDFC Bank Limited, said "The business-to-business e-commerce portal which the new company will set up will be the first full service real-time portal in India".

Alongwith the joint-venture agreement, HDFC Bank also entered into a partnership agreement with National Computer Systems (NCS), the e-commerce arm of Singapore Telecom, to provide complete IT and banking infrastructure enabling Indian corporates to process online credit card transactions.