TCS wins $100 mn Bank of China deal

Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), the country's largest software exporter, is believed to have clinched a $100 million deal spread over five years from Bank of China to provide technology solutions.

The contract can be termed as one of the major IT-related deals signed by a Chinese bank and is timely for a company aggressively expanding in China, industry sources said.

A TCS spokesperson declined to comment.

Bank of China had called for bids to revamp its IT infrastructure. It is the second-biggest lender in China and has the largest global network among all Chinese banks. The bank is looking at integrating its IT requirements for its international network.

Sources said the opportunity is seen as huge because the vendors who are able to bag the deal for the international network will get an edge for mainland operations of the bank. Chinese banks have not outsourced their IT development to external vendors.

Offshoring has not been tried in any of the Chinese banks so Indian vendors are keen on getting a portion of the current project, the sources said. The deal is being touted as one of the largest in Asia and alignments across hardware, software and networking equipment are firming up for various consortia.

The company has a close relationship with Chinese trade finance and software products company China Systems.

TCS, which is in operations in China for the last five years, will provide a range of banking solutions to the BOC. It has a core banking solution called BANCS.

All major Indian IT companies, including TCS, Infosys, Satyam, Wipro, NIIT and i-Flex, have set up bases in China to serve multinationals customers and target the Chinese software market as well as the Japanese and South Korean markets.

The latest deal came close on the heels of a seven-year, $65 million agreement the Indian IT major had announced early this month with Somerfield, a British small-format food retailer, to provide a full range of managed IT services.