Wipro in race for Amex IT outsourcing deal

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Deal expected to be upwards of $1 billion.

Close on the heels of mega IT outsourcing deals from ABN Amro and General Motors, India software vendors are bidding aggressively for the American Express (Amex) IT outsourcing deal which is expected to be upwards of a billion dollars.

According to market sources, Wipro is aggressively bidding for this contract even as it attempts to ramp up its financial services numbers.

No official confirmation was forthcoming from Wipro. In addition to Amex, it is learnt Wipro is also bidding for the Bank of America contract which is also in the $1 billion league.

American Express' $4 billion 7-year deal with IBM Global Services is coming to an end during next year and it is this contract which is keeping Indian vendors active.

TCS and Wipro won parts of the ABN Amro and Pearl Deals. Wipro is therefore trying to break into this league. In the recent past has been getting its act together in the financial services sector where it has been a late starter compared to its peers.

This division totalled up revenues of $345 million during FY06, a growth of 64 per cent YoY. The division has been growing at around 50 per cent during FY05 and FY04.

Said Girish Paranjape, president, Finance Solutions - Wipro Technologies: "We are under-represented in the financial segment and have been catching up pretty fast. We have around 6,000 professionals in our division and are witnessing the growth trajectory. Sequentially, we grew by 14 per cent during Q4."