HCL Technologies has bagged a $200-million deal from Bank of America Merrill Lynch (BofA-ML).

The five-year deal involves remotely managing the IT infrastructure of the North Carolina-based banking and financial services giant and consolidating the data centres and managing its network across different countries, according to sources in the company.

Further, the deal also involves managing of some technologies that the bank is using to cut down on physical visits and technologies that can lower costs of regulatory compliance in addition to maintaining their banking systems.

When contacted, an HCL Tech company spokesperson said that the company does not comment on rumours.

Outsourcing route

This is not the first time that BofA-ML has taken the outsourcing route. In 2004, Bank of America entered into a $1.1-billion deal with EDS (which is now a part of HP) for eight and a half years, to manage its data and voice network.

In 2005, Bank of America, set up an Indian subsidiary for its back-office operations, which staffed around 1,000 people, at a time when competitors such as UBS, JP Morgan, Citibank and others were setting up back-office shops in India, thereby building the $118-billion IT industry.

BoFAML also works with TCS and Infosys on various programming-related projects and also has outsourced some call centre work to the Philippines, according to reports. It got into trouble for sending “jobs abroad” and in 2011, a class-action lawsuit was filed against the company.

Earlier this month, HCL bagged a $300-million deal from French telecom major Alcatel Lucent that involved HCL to take up R&D work in 2G and 3G technologies and co-create intellectual property.

Infrastructure business of HCL is one of its strongest verticals and at the end of 2014 fiscal, it got around 34 per cent of its revenues and has signed 14 multi-million dollar, multi-year deal, estimated to have total contract value of $2 billion.

Related Topics