ECB chooses Unisys for IT operations
The European Central Bank (ECB) has signed a contract with IT services provider Unisys to manage its day-to-day IT operations, which includes IT support and operation of its data centre.
ECB says the contract was formed due to the increasing standardisation of IT services. The result allows these services to be managed by Unisys and enable ECB to have more “flexibility” to focus on its specialised tasks.
As part of the contract, Unisys will comply with ECB’s IT security policies and ethics framework. This is not the first, as ECB has already introduced external providers in several other areas of its IT, such as the delivery of projects and ongoing maintenance.
According to ECB, it will continue to own IT hardware and software and will host all affected services within its own data centres.
On a positive note, ECB says the move will not affect members of staff, and it will honour all existing staff contracts. There will also be no redundancies or termination of contracts of permanent staff. The ECB says it has consulted staff representatives and has agreed on transition arrangements, aimed at supporting affected temporary staff.
Back in October, the ECB said its governing council will decide by the end of this year whether to greenlight a new real-time gross settlement (RTGS) system to replace the decade-old Target2 platform.
