Under the terms of the contract, which was first announced in May, Astron will perform print and email scanning, fulfillment, and application development, as well as other unspecified document-related services. Over 700 full-time ING staff are expected to transfer to Astron as part of the deal.
The completion of the agreement comes one month after ING finalized its 200m-euro ($266m) application development deal with LogicaCMG, part of a far-reaching overhaul of the bank’s IT and back-office administration operations. In total, ING plans to cut 500 jobs from its 13,000-strong Operations and IT division in the Benelux countries, and outsource a further 2,200 staff to third-party suppliers.
Huntingdon, UK-based Astron is a subsidiary of document management and printing services vendor RR Donnelley, having been acquired by the US firm for $990m in May 2005. At the time of the takeover, Astron claimed to be the fourth largest business process outsourcing provider in the UK.
