ABN AMRO is slashing its IT headcount from 5,000 to 1,800 after signing a raft of outsourcing deals worth €1.8bn over five years.

The Dutch banking giant has struck deals with Infosys, IBM, Accenture, Tata Consultancy, and Patni.

While the consultants move in, internal IT staff will be moving out. Around 2,000 staff will shift to the services companies, mainly to IBM.However, that still means a total estimated staff reduction of around1,500 the bank confirmed. The original forecast was for 1,200 cuts.

Services companies were falling over themselves this morning to trumpet their just-signed outsourcing deals with ABN AMRO.

IBM seems to have grabbed the biggest chunk of business, revealing it has struck a five year €1.5bn deal to manage infrastructure services for the bank. This will include “the most extensive rollout of IBM’s… Universal Management Infrastructure.”

India’s Infosys announced it had inked a five year outsourcing deal to develop, support and enhance applications for the bank. Infosys says it has also secured the right to ~bit as a top five sevice provider for application development projects” at the bank.®