Tata Consultancy Services announced a major expansion of its recently announced deal to take over administration of around 4 mln life and pensions contracts from M&G Prudential, the savings and investments business of Prudential.
The deal, announced in January this year, was worth pegged at £500 mln (half a billion pounds) at the time.
Today, the company reported an effective doubling of the deal.
“The agreement has now been expanded to cover an additional1.8 million customer policies which will move from M&G Prudential to TCS, bringing the total number of policies covered by the partnership to 5.8 million, and is worth an additional £500 million ($668 million USD) over the term of the contract,” the Indian outsourcing company said.
With this, said TCS, the number of life and pension policies being administered by its platform BaNCS has risen to over 18 million, from about 17 mln earlier.
The January agreement, pegged at £500 million over 10 years, had also involved the transfer of close to 2,000 employees to TCS’ rolls.
In the latest announcement, TCS gave a different number for the employee transfers. “Around 400 roles from M&G Prudential across a number of UK sites are expected to be transferred under the TUPE arrangements to TCS’ FCA-regulated, UK subsidiary. A further 183 roles in India are also expected to move from M&G Prudential to TCS,” it said. TUPE relates to regulations in the UK that are designed to protect employees in cases of asset sales and transfers.
It was not clear if the new number is in addition to the earlier announced transfer of staff.
The deal comes as many companies working in the service sector — such as banking and finance — are moving large parts of their operations to technology companies to take advantage of the efficiency offered by software and artificial intelligence.
TCS and other Indian providers have invested in developing their own ‘platforms’ — a combination of people, process and technology — that carry out many of the core and non-core functions of companies at a fraction of the cost.
Clare Bousfield, Chief Executive, Prudential UK, said it was yet another step towards making M&G Prudential an independent business.
“We are confident that extending our strategic partnership is the right thing to do. Our customers will benefit from a better experience, digitally enhanced systems, tools and service, while the colleagues who have been central to our success in servicing our customers will join a rapidly growing business and have access to many opportunities that being part of a world leading IT services company can deliver,” she added.
Shankar Narayanan, Head of UK & Ireland, TCS said his company looked forward to welcoming M&G Prudential employees.
“Ranked Britain’s Top Employer, TCS offers exciting career opportunities and a supportive environment that helps our employees realize their potential, while supporting our customers in the UK with a phenomenal talent pool with deep expertise in Life and Pensions Administration,” he added.