IT firms eyeing ING Bank outsourcing contract

Buoyed by the success of the ABN Amro deal, top-tier Indian IT companies now hope to win a sizeable pie of the outsourcing contract of another European major, ING Bank.

Indian companies expect ING to float the request for proposals (RFPs) shortly, an industry official said on Monday.

An industry official expects outsourcing contract from ING bank to be “broadly similar to the ABN Amro contract in size and scope”.

The request for proposals is yet to be sent out to companies and the whole process may take a full year before the deal is finalised. That is not unusual: the ABN Amro contract took nearly a year to be concluded.

Early this month, ABN Amro said it has inked a five-year global services pact with five IT vendors including three leading Indian companies - Infosys Technologies, Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), and Patni Computer Systems.

Total value of the deal is 1.8 billion euros, or roughly Rs 9,800 crore.

An Infosys official said his company’s share of the order is valued at 108 million euros. TCS put the value of its share at 200 million euros.

Reportedly TPI, an information technology services advisory firm, is advising seven mega contracts totaling $13 billion, to be concluded over the next two quarters.

Of these contracts, TCS is bidding for two totaling $1.33 billion, Infosys Technologies for four totaling $532 million, Wipro for three worth $250 million, and HCL Technologies for a $100-million deal.

In a note to clients last month, UBS Warburg said offshore vendors are bidding for 25% of global contracts handled by TPI that are likely to close in the near-term. This is significantly better than historical win-rate of offshore vendors, it said.