Nationwide hands network reins to BT

Nationwide Building Society has signed a seven-year £160m deal with BT to outsource the management of its networked IT services.

The contract will see Nationwide's voice and data network infrastructure and existing third-party network contracts transferred to the telco.

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Nationwide's infrastructure will sit on BT's next generation 21CN network as part of a service transformation programme.

The deal should result in lower cost of ownership through the use of industry best practice and service level agreements.

BT will also provide improved remote access for the building society's staff who work away from the office.

In the past, Nationwide has developed and managed its IT operations in-house but is now shifting to a number of suppliers to cut costs and improve flexibility.

Head of IT infrastructure at Nationwide, Peter Stafford, said the organisation's IT infrastructure has had to evolve at an exponential rate to keep up with demand so the most efficient and scalable tech is needed to support this.

Back in March, Nationwide signed a multimillion pound deal with SAP to use the German software giant's banking platform as part of its £300m Voyager business transformation project.