National Savings and Investments makes £300m extension to Atos deal
UK government-owned savings bank adds three years to IT services contract with French supplier
UK state-owned savings bank National Savings and Investments (NS&I) is extending its IT services contract with French IT services company Atos.
NS&I will pay Atos an extra £305m for a three-year extension that will take the relationship to 2024. The previous contract, signed in 2014, was for five years.
Between 2014 and 2018, total funds invested with NS&I grew from £106bn to £157bn, and the bank’s overall contract with Atos over 10 years from 2014 is expected to be worth more than £1bn.
Atos has already refreshed NS&I’s website, introduced a 24-hour contact centre, and deployed social media channels and web chat for customer contact.
“NS&I will continue to work with Atos to refine its customer service offer, with improved digital capability and a focus on ensuring the business continues to operate efficiently, using an infrastructure that provides value for money for taxpayers,” said an NS&I statement.
NS&I CIO Ian Ackerley added: “The three-year extension to the operational services contract means that Atos will continue to deliver customer-facing and back-office services to NS&I’s 25 million customers. It will help NS&I to further enhance our customer offer, while at the same time using our insight and expertise to deliver for other parts of government and deliver value for money for taxpayers.”
In 1999, NS&I first outsourced its operations to Siemens Business Services, which was acquired by Atos in July 2011 for €850m. The bank calculates that it has saved about £530m in costs since it first outsourced IT services.
