The Hindu Business Line : Australian bank in talks with Infosys for outsourcing

A high-level delegation from Commonwealth Bank including its Chief Information Officer recently visited Infosys and held talks with the company's top brass, sources said.

However, Infosys declined to comment on the development. It could not be ascertained whether the Commonwealth Bank officials held discussions with any of the other major Indian vendors.

The visit of Commonwealth Bank's team to Infosys assumes significance as the bank's ongoing $5 billion, 10-year IT services deal with EDS signed way back in 1997 is due to expire in three years.

The bank had essentially completed a review of its sourcing strategy post-2007 and was looking at rebuilding its architecture capability and IT strategy and was planning to improve capabilities in demand management and application development, said The Australian quoting CIO, Mr Bob McKinnon, in April this year.

Besides Commonwealth Bank other leading banks such as Westpac, St George and the National Australia Bank are said to be looking at offshoring call centre operations to countries such as India and the Philippines. According to Finance Services Union, one of Australia's largest union, about 15 per cent of the jobs in the Australian banking industry would be offshored by 2008.

Meanwhile, Infosys, which is making a push for growing its services business in the Australian market, has signed up utility agency South East Water Ltd as one of its new clients down Under.

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