As part of the transaction, Wipro and Citi will sign a Master Services Agreement for the delivery of Technology Infrastructure Services (TIS) and Application Development and Maintenance (ADM) services for a period of six years. The agreement - sealed on 24 December - provides for the delivery of at least $500 million in service revenues over the period of the contract.

Based in Mumbai and Chennai, CTS has approximately 1650 employees trained in Citi processes and technologies, servicing the US bank's businesses in more than 32 countries. Revenues for the unit are expected to be approximately $80 million in 2008.

Marty Lippert, chief operations and technology officer, Citi says: "This partnership enables Citi to leverage Wipro's expertise in information technology services where we have significant plans for driving higher efficiencies by leveraging the Global Delivery Model."

The sale of the tech arm follows the offloading of the US bank's BPO unit to TCS in October for $505 million.

Soumitro Ghosh, SVP, finance solutions, Wipro, comments: "Citi Technology Services team's expertise in addressing the risk and compliance issues for banking industry positions us well to offer similar scale and complexity of services to other leading banks in US and Europe. We are confident that the skillsets we have acquired will enhance our capabilities to compete for more TIS business in the financial services industry in general and Citi in particular."

Wipro is also named among a clutch of potential suitors for Fidelity's captive Indian IT unit which employs approximately 2000 staff in Chennai and Bangalore.