Services giant EDS has signed up the Bank of America for a $1.1bn contract - despite being downgraded to junk status by credit agency Moody's late last week. EDS objected strongly to Moody's decision.

The eight-and-a-half year deal covers the integration of recently-acquired FleetBoston Financial's network into Bank of America systems. EDS already runs BoA's network. The completed voice and data network will link 180,000 employees in 5,700 banks and 16,500 ATMs as well as supporting telephone and internet banking.

As part of the outsourcing deal 150 FleetBoston IT staff will move to EDS. In February 2003 EDS began moving Bank of America onto a combined voice and data network - two thirds of branches are now connected.

The press release is here ®

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