National Bank of Canada has signed a ten-year IT outsourcing contract with IBM worth $700 million.
IBM has been providing IT services to the Canadian bank since 1994. Under the new agreement, IBM Global Services will continue to manage the operations of the bank's IT infrastructure, including its Web environment and call centres through to 2011.
The two firms are also forming an initiative aimed at developing the bank's e-business proposition. The Innovation Team (i-Team) will be comprised of experts from IBM Research and IBM's consulting organisations.
Real Raymond, president and COO, National Bank of Canada, comments: "This agreement will allow us to maintain a high-quality and secure technical infrastructure while accelerating the transformation of the bank into an e-business."