Barclays Bank has signed a six-year £400 million contract to outsource application development and management of its UK commercial and retail banking systems to Accenture
Under the agreement, 900 of Barclays' UK employees involved in system development, support and maintenance, will transfer to Accenture over a 12-month period.
Barclays says it will retain responsibility and management oversight for IT strategy development and will maintain staffing in selected areas. The investment banking and asset management operations at Barclays Capital and Barclays Global Investors are not in scope.
Barclays says the deal will help it to improve resource flexibility and lower the costs associated with developing and maintaining its software applications.
Contract negotiations between the bank, outsourcer and labour unions have been ongoing for over six months.
Under the transfer terms, there will be no compulsory redundancies for the first two years of the contract and employees will maintain their banking benefits.
Lead negotiator for banking union Unifi, Keith Brookes, comments: "Unifi is happy with the deal. Negotiations have been tough, but were conducted in an open atmosphere where both parties recognised their respective interests."