Bank of Ireland (BoI) has signed a five-year infrastructure deal with IBM after a previous seven-year contract with HP expired recently.

The financial terms of the deal have not been disclosed, but the contract with HP signed in April 2003 was worth $600m, according to HP's statement at the time.

There have been no significant changes to BoI’s infrastructure since then. The only addition to the new group-wide contract is the bank’s capital market’s division, which a BoI spokesperson described as “quite small in the overall scheme of things”.

The bank selected IBM for exclusive contract negotiations after protracted competitive tendering.

"The signing of this contract marks the culmination of a lengthy process, during which Bank of Ireland assessed a number of potential service providers," said Larry Kiernan, BoI’s head of group IT in a statement.The bank will continue to work with HP on handover tasks" he added.

The monetary value of the contract was not the only determining factor in choosing IBM, said a BoI spokesperson.