Allied Irish Bank (AIB) has awarded a three year contract, worth EUR45 million, to overhaul its core banking infrastructure to IBM.
In a statement IBM says the aim of the agreement is to provide AIB with an open and flexible platform to support future business growth.
Under the contract IBM will implement and support a new core banking infrastructure consisting of i-flex's Flexcube core banking package running on an IBM System z platform powered by DB2 and WebSphere software.
The bank said in April last year that it licensed the Flexcube package to overhaul and streamline its retail banking operations in Ireland. The bank already used the Flexcube technology for its wholesale banking operations.
Commenting on the new deal, Michael Daly, country general manager, IBM Ireland, says: "Banks like AIB are looking for new ways to modernize their core systems and reduce operational costs by rationalizing massive server farms to more flexible and efficient systems."
AIB's Eddie Sweeney says the bank is transforming its core banking system using packaged applications to provide greater back-office integration and support its growth plans to 2010.
IBM says it also recently helped AIB consolidate its data centres into two new sites. The move will enable the bank to minimise its data centre carbon footprint and improve resilience, says the vendor.
In addition to the AIB deal, IBM is also reporting new contracts with Bank of London and the Middle East and Standard Bank.
Bank of London and The Middle East (BLME) - a stand-alone Sharia'a compliant investment bank that launched in the UK in July 2007 - is implementing intrusion prevention technology from IBM's Internet security systems division to help reinforce existing security controls and further protect its customer and corporate data.
Furthermore, IBM is reporting a technology services contract with Standard Bank's Argentine branch that includes hosting, operation and recovery services as well as hardware provision.