Auatralia's Westpac Banking Corporation has signed a A$100 million deal with First Data International Card and Merchant Services to provide a managed service for its cards processing.
Under the agreement First Data will assume responsibility for processing the bank's Australasian cards, in phases from October 2002.
Westpac will retain control of its cards sales, credit, collections and customer service back office functions in New Zealand and Australia.
The IT infrastructure for the new service will be consolidated in Australia and will be provided by IBM GSA under an existing outsourcing arrangement.
Michael Coomer, group executive, business and technology services, Westpac, says the deal will allow the bank to take advantage of the latest trends in card processing.