ABN Amro Set To Unveil Largest IT Offshore Outsourcing Deal

InformationWeek has learned that ABN Amro on Thursday will formally acknowledge its signing of the IT industry's largest offshore outsourcing deal to date. According to numerous sources, the Dutch financial-services giant has tapped Indian service providers Tata Consultancy Services and Patni Computer Systems as part of a consortium of vendors that will handle its infrastructure, application development, and maintenance requirements.

Sources say the total value of the work could exceed $2 billion in total, with TCS and Patni in line for contracts worth hundreds of millions of dollars. That would represent the largest sum committed by a Western firm to Indian IT-services vendors.

ABN Amro is said to want to move more than 2,000 IT jobs to India to take advantage of the country's low cost environment. Several U.S.-based vendors, including IBM and Accenture, also are thought to be in the running for portions of the work. Both vendors maintain large development centers in India. IBM and Accenture officials were not immediately available for comment. A formal announcement is expected Thursday morning, according to sources.