The new London facilities will serve as the main hub for NBAD’s expansion in Europe. NBAD has been operating in London since 1977.

This adds to a 2012 contract between BT and NBAD for managed network services, linking the bank’s centralised IT services from its data centre in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) to twelve branches of its international network.

In addition, customers of NBAD will gain access to trading applications and services via the BT Radianz Cloud from the bank’s new London based hub. NBAD has been accessing services via the BT Radianz Cloud at the bank’s trading floor in the UAE since 2012. The BT Radianz Cloud supports the largest secure networked financial services community in the world.

The contract announced today supports NBAD’s objective to create a single managed network to ensure a consistent quality of connection between its London office and its branches in the UAE. This will help NBAD to optimise performance, better track costs, and improve its security profile.

Under the terms of the new contract, BT will also provide NBAD with a range of additional services, including managed data centre services from the BT Compute portfolio, managed IP telephony from the BT One portfolio, converged LAN services and managed WAN services from the BT Connect portfolio, business continuity services and managed security services from the BT Assure portfolio.

Mike Austin, Group CIO at NBAD, said: “With a growing international network, NBAD has the ambition of being the world’s best Arab bank. We provide a bridge between the West and the East and help our customers grow by providing the best possible products and services. Working in partnership with BT we have already been able to provide consistent service quality across all of our branches. Seamless connectivity between our branches and systems is therefore crucial for us and for our customers.

Wael El Kabbany, managing director, Middle East and North Africa, BT Global Services said: “We are proud to have again been chosen by the National Bank of Abu Dhabi (NBAD) for the delivery of a wide range of networked IT services. Such services can bring a wealth of possibilities to businesses depending on how they are designed, orchestrated and managed. NBAD is one of those leading global banking organisations that realises technology is not an end in itself and that sees the importance of imagination, know-how and insight. This is what BT works hard to bring to the table and what differentiates us from other technology suppliers - what we call ‘mastering the art of connecting.’ We see this new contract as a further validation of our strategy to be the networked IT services provider of choice across the whole global financial services sector.”