Alliance & Leicester gets a boost from Finland

Alliance & Leicester has signed a managed services deal with Finland's TietoEnator (TE) for its corporate lending and banking division.

As part of a five-year agreement, TE will provide a 24-hour support service for its Portfolio asset contract management software, used by the bank.

The deal also brings a speedier processing contract management system along with improved disaster recovery and data security.

The bank has around 30,000 contracts on its database and they need to be available and accessible every day.

Dave Storey, systems administration manager at Alliance & Leicester, said the agreement comes as the bank moves onto the new and more efficient IT platform.

Storey said his team previously had to spend excessive time dealing with server or power problems but TE will now take this responsibility away, freeing staff up for other tasks.

In terms of spending and savings the deal is cost-neutral, according to Storey, and is about providing a more reliable and supportable system rather than saving money.

The deal cements a five-year software supply relationship between Alliance & Leicester and TE, and implementation is due to be completed by early 2008.