The largest bank in the Euro zone, Grupo Santander, has chosen BT as a preferred supplier of networked IT services as part of a new Global Partnership Agreement. In a related deal, BT will also provide the complete range of communications facilities for Abbey, Grupo Santander’s UK retail banking subsidiary.
Global partnership agreement
The global agreement is the latest development in BT’s work with Grupo Santander around the world. BT will provide a single global account management team and access to BT research and development expertise at Adastral Park in the UK, as well as cost-effective access to the latest technologies to continue improving the Group’s operations. Grupo Santander also joins BT’s Global Technology forum – a regular CIO/CTO forum designed to foster growing understanding of technology solutions in the context of common business objectives.
“This agreement will allow the two businesses to reach unparalleled levels of efficiency by focusing their best knowledge, practices and expertise in what they do best. BT will work hard to collaborate with Grupo Santander to become an even better bank,” said Luis Alvarez, VP BT Spain and Southern Europe.
Abbey extends outsourcing with BT
Under a new five-year contract BT will have responsibility for all aspects of the provision, installation and management of Abbey’s communications infrastructure. A key focus will be a new MPLS core network, with voice and data sharing the same network for all on-net calling.
The new deal extends BT’s existing outsourcing relationship with Abbey. With its partner Cisco Systems, BT was responsible for an extensive infrastructure transformation programme at Abbey, which was Europe’s largest ever deployment of VoIP and IP telephony.
Founded in 1857 in the northern Spanish port of Santander, Grupo Santander has 63 million customers, 10,000 offices and operations in more than 40 countries.
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