Barclays tops up Siemens deal for £45m

Barclays has extended its business process outsourcing contract with Siemens Business Services in a £45m deal.

Originally signed in 2000, Siemens Business Services will manage Barclays' retail banking back office operations for an additional two years, until 2007.

Siemens will manage areas of Barclays' operations including transfers, account closure and administration for direct debts.

John Stewart, service manager, branch and customer account services at Barclays, said since the original deal was struck, rates had become more competitive.

Stewart described the relationship between the two companies as "excellent" and said that while "it's easy to get lulled into discussions... about rates per head" Siemens had delivered to "high standards".

"We're striving to get the number of suppliers... we deal with down to a minimal number," he said. "From a cost perspective, it's expensive if we have too many vendors in this space."

Barclays has already signed a £400m deal with Accenture to outsource the application development and management related to its UK-based commercial and retail-banking systems, in a deal that contains an offshore element.

It has also outsourced the running of its desktops to EDS.