Banking giant Barclays has outsourced its desktop and application support to European IT services group Getronics in a deal worth €200 million over the next five years.

Getronics will support more than 30,000 users at the bank, and provide other services including workspace management, technology, transformation and application services.

The contract, due to start in February, will be serviced primarily out of the UK, with support from its Spanish and Budapest operations.

"Getronics' workspace and application management services provide us with the support and flexibility we need to continue to evolve and optimise our IT environment cost effectively," said Paul Idzik, chief operating officer at Barclays.

Barclays is a long-standing customer of Getronics. Last year it won an €8 million deal with the bank to replace legacy behind-the-counter technology with 7,000 new PCs across its 1,700 branches.

But, having got some sizeable deals under its belt, Getronics now needs to prove it can deliver, said Kate Hanaghan, analyst at technology advisory company Ovum. "If it does a good job, it will be well placed to win further deals of a good size."

In November 2004, Getronics bought rival Dutch company PinkRoccade for 338 million Euros ($433m) to grow business in the Netherlands and the UK.