Colt says Nomura's data communications have been connected using its managed Ethernet service, Colt LANLink Hub & Spoke, linking regional office LANs in eight countries to a global WAN, and enabling operation on a single platform.

Corporate Voice, a pan-European service which allows Nomura to consolidate all of its voice expenditure under a single pricing structure and contract has also been implemented.

Ian Buchanan, CIO at Nomura International comments: "We believe that Colt's wholly owned, high performance network will help boost our pan-European operations."

In a seperate deal, German bank Commerzbank has selected Colt to upgrade and manage its communications infrastructure across Europe in a contract valued at EU$15 million.

Colt says the win is one of the largest in its 13 year history.

Under terms of the agreement, Colt will maintain the communications network for 190 of the bank's sites across Germany, which it says are already interconnected via its ATM network using secure VPN services.

The Commerzbank national WAN backbone, scattered in 11 locations throughout Germany, will also be set-up and managed by the firm. Colt says the sites will be linked with redundant 155 Mbit/s lines based on SDH technology.

Comments Roland Schneider, network services manager at Commerzbank: "Our positive experience with Colt in the past meant that we chose Colt in all areas where our branches could be connected up to its own network."

Commerzbank offices in Dublin, London, Amsterdam, Brussels, Paris, Barcelona, Madrid, Milan and Frankfurt will also be supported by Colt's 20,000km European network.

The project is scheduled for completion in late 2006.