Accenture will provide systems integration, consulting, business process management and IT and business process outsourcing.

The deal will initially cover recently acquired Banco Real in Brazil and the Royal Bank of Scotland's European consumer finance unit as well as the integration of Abbey National and Alliance & Leicester into Santander Group in the UK.

Following its acquisition of A&L last year, the Spanish bank said it would transfer the unit's operations onto its proprietary IT platform, Partenon.

Before the takeover, A&L had been mid-way through a three-year project to move its legacy core retail and commercial banking systems to Accenture's Alnova technology platform.

The contract also calls for Accenture to develop and implement strategic initiatives relating to Santander's operations in Spain, Portugal, the UK, Germany, Mexico, Brazil, Argentina and Chile.

José Mª Fuster, general technology and operations manager, Grupo Santander, says: "Thanks to this agreement, we can significantly strengthen our execution capabilities to continue implementing our strategic systems vision, which has made us the most efficient global bank in the world."