Barclays signs £400m Accenture outsourcing deal

Barclays bank has signed a six-year IT outsourcing deal worth more than £400m with Accenture, as exclusively revealed by silicon.com last December.

The contract covers Barclays' application development and management related to its UK-based commercial and retail-banking systems, which is currently done inhouse by the "build services" group in Bexley Heath, Poole and Radbroke.

Around 900 Barclays UK employees will transfer to Accenture in the UK over a 12-month period.

As part of consultations with staff and financial services union Unifi, employee benefits have been secured and there will be no compulsory redundancies for the first two years of the contract.

David Weymouth, CIO at Barclays, said in a statement: "We have worked closely with our union partner UNIFI and Accenture to manage the impact on employees and remain committed to being an employer of choice without compromising our ability to drive the business forward."

Lead negotiator for UNIFI, Keith Brookes, said negotiations had been "tough" but were conducted in an "open atmosphere".