The bank is implementing HP's Halo Collaboration Studio - which was developed in partnership with DreamWorks Animation - to link five regional client business units to share best practices and to connect to technology partners, including outsourcing and offshore partners.

Initially the technology will be installed at six ABN Amro locations - Amsterdam, Chicago, Hong Kong, London, Mumbai and Sao Paulo - and will be rolled out across other sites later.

HP says the technology enables participants to see each other in life-sized images projected on studio-quality displays and communicate with one another without perceived delay. Each "Halo room" is designed for up to six people and comes equipped with studio-quality audio, says HP.

John Wallace, vice president, worldwide financial services industry, HP, says: "With Halo, ABN Amro employees that are separated by geography will be able to meet and work as if they are in the same office."

The Halo system will change the way ABN Amro builds and uses shared services, says HP, as the bank's offices around the globe will be able to collaborate on projects. The system can also be used to train personnel without accruing costly travel bills.

"Halo provides us with an incredibly useful way to transfer and leverage knowledge from across the organisation no matter where our employees are in the world," says Craig Hollenbaugh, corporate vice president and global head, infrastructure services, ABN Amro. "We could have mortgage teams in the Netherlands and Brazil working together on a mortgage-related service instead of having co-located teams. We will also use Halo as a way to build more agility into the development of new products and services."