India's largest software exporter, Tata Consultancy Services, said in a statement that it had won a five-year 200 million euro (260 million dollar) contract for outsourcing work on ABN Amro's strategic banking platform.

"This is the largest deal won by an Indian IT services company ever," Tata Consultancy said.

Rival Infosys Technologies also said that it was awarded a five-year deal worth 140 million dollars to handle a "wide spectrum" of applications for ABN Amro offices in North America, Europe and the Asia Pacific.

"This is the single largest multi-year, multi-million euro contract ever won by Infosys," said Nandan Nilekani, chief executive officer.

"The deal also signifies a trend towards strategic global sourcing, where customers are selecting multiple, best-of-breed vendors to help improve efficiencies in their IT service delivery," Nilekani said.

Investors welcomed the announcements as shares of both Infosys and Tata Consultancy rose.

Infosys closed up 49.9 rupees or 2.1 percent at 2,426 while Tata Consultancy gained 13.5 rupees or 0.94 percent to 1,419. The Mumbai stock exchange's benchmark 30-share Sensex index rose 70.72 points to close at 7,876.15.

V. Balakrishnan, senior vice-president of Infosys said the total value of the ABN Amro deal was 1.8 billion euros.

"Infosys and Tata Consultancy put together got 400 million dollars. The rest has gone to other firms including IBM, Accenture and Patni Computer Systems," Balakrishnan told AFP.

He said more "multi-million-dollar" deals were in the pipeline.

"We are in the game. There are a couple of others more from the US and Europe in the offing," Balakrishnan said.

A statement posted on ABN Amro's website abnamro.com said the deal would result in a new technology organisation within the firm and 1,500 full-time employees would lose their jobs.

Of the total of 5,000 full-time information technology employees of ABN Amro working worldwide, about 2,000 would be transfered to the outsourced firms, mainly to IBM, the statement said.

"In line with the former communications, the total estimated IT staff reduction for ABN AMRO will be 1,500 full-time employees over the next 18 months," it said.

Jaideep Goswami, an analyst at HDFC Securities, said the deal would boost earnings for Infosys and Tata Consultancy.

"These two companies have achieved a critical mass in terms of ability to execute a deal," Goswami told AFP. "The big deals are important to improve the top line and bottom line of these firms. It is an important and significant achievement."

About 850,000 graduates and professionals are employed in the outsourcing and technical support industries in India as global firms take advantage of the country's skilled but relatively cheap English-speaking manpower.

Infosys alone employs close to 40,000 professionals.

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