Dutch financial institution ING and a group of outsourcing providers have agreed to a $1 billion, five-year deal covering workplace services for INGs banking and insurance operations in the Netherlands and Belgium.
ING Group, based in Amsterdam, Netherlands, provides banking, insurance and asset management in over 50 countries.
Under a memorandum of understanding, Accenture, Atos Origin, Getronics and KPN will provide installation, maintenance and support for desktops, laptops, printers and telephones, according to an ING statement.
Approximately 490 workers in the Netherlands and approximately 60 workers in Belgium will be transferred to the providers. The memorandum is expected to be finalized by the end of 2006.
The deal is part of INGs efficiency initiatives, announced in 2005 by ING Group, which have the goal of reducing costs by approximately $585 million annually.
In total, about 2,200 workers will be transferred to outsourcing partners under the strategy.
In 2003, ING outsourced IT infrastructure services to IBM Global Services in a $600 million, seven-year deal.
In a major multisourcing deal announced in the fall of 2005, Dutch banking rival ABN AMRO signed a $2.24 billion deal with several outsourcing providers. IBM Global Services got the IT infrastructure piece of that deal, with Tata Consultancy Services, Infosys, Patni and Accenture divvying up the application development work.