AIB to outsource 170 IT roles after review
The state-owned Irish lender will not make any redundancies, but confirmed that it is in talks to outsource certain IT services to existing suppliers such as Eircom, Integrity and Wipro, according to Reuters.
The decision follows the conclusion of a review of operations started at the bank in October, though the number of roles being outsourced was lower than expected, with earlier media reports that the figure would be closer to 450.
IT staff will be transferred to the third party companies, including Wipro, in accordance to European Union law, the bank said.
The news comes as Ireland's Department of Finance prepares to sell off the bank, following a 21 billion-euro (£16.3 billion) bailout during the financial crisis.
AIB, which recently returned to profit, has already cut thousands of staff, down from a pre-crisis headcount of around 26,000 - including part time staff - to approximately 11,385 full-time employees in June last year.
In its full-year results announcement last March, the bank said that it has increases spending on IT in recent years to improve its legacy systems, with investments in customer-facing services such as mobile and tablet apps.
The decision to outsource staff comes as more financial sector companies look to third party support. This includes Co-operative Bank which tasked Capita with revamping its mortgage servicing operation in the UK, a deal worth up to £325 million over 10 years and involving the transfer of around 660 people.
Sainsbury's Bank is also migrating control of its infrastructure to FIS, as it moves away from Lloyds Banking Group's legacy systems to a new banking platform in a £90 million migration project.
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