In one of the largest outsourcing deals ever, global banking major ABN Amro has signed a Euro 1.8 billion ($2.22 billion) contract with five IT-vendors, including Tata Consultancy Services [Get Quote], Infosys [Get Quote] and IBM.

TCS and Infosys, India's two largest private IT companies, will provide application support and enhancement to ABN Amro for its worldwide operations, while IBM has been selected for IT infrastructure, according to ABN Amro's notification to Amsterdam Stock Exchange.

All five vendors -- TCS, Infosys, IBM, Patni Computers and Accenture -- have been selected to supply application development.

According to Infosys, this is the single-largest, multi-year multi-million Euro contract ever won by the company and the company's share of the overall contract includes committed volumes in North America, Europe and Asia Pacific.

"This is a landmark deal for Infosys," Nandan Nilekani, CEO, President and Managing Director, Infosys, said.

This deal clearly indicates that large offshore players like Infosys have a competitive business model to deliver large, global, multi-year contract.

The five-year outsourcing contract with IBM would oversee IT infrastructure services for the bank worldwide. Under the agreement, the company is expected to assume management of the majority of ABN Amro's worldwide information technology systems including servers, storage systems and desktops.

The only exception is the IT infrastructure of the business unit wholesale clients, which was already outsourced to EDS in 2003, the bank said in its notice to Amsterdam Stock Exchange.

For the application support and enhancements to the bank, TCS and Infosys have been allocated to maintain selected applications across business units to serve bank appropriately.

After September 1, the planning for phased transition commencement dates is expected for application support and enhancement, subject to consent of local regulators, the bank said, adding the implementation of the agreements will be phased over 18 months.

In addition, ABN Amro has chosen Accenture, IBM, Infosys, Patni and TCS as its preferred vendors for application development. These vendors would develop new applications across all business units of the bank.

TCS, in a notice to the stock exchange, said that the landmark engagement is expected to generate committed revenues of over Euros 200 million for the company, in the next five years.

"This is the largest deal won by an Indian IT services company ever," TCS said in the notice.

Announcing the signing of a five-year global deal to develop, support and enhance a wide spectrum of applications for ABN Amro, Infosys said: "Following a competitive tender, ABN Amro has reached an agreement with the selected IT vendors to improve the performance of its IT services and realise significant efficiencies across the global IT organisation."