Under the deal, Mumbai- and Chennai-based Citi Technology Services Ltd will continue to provide IT services to Citi and its affiliates around the world for a period of six years, Citi and Wipro said in a joint statement.

They said the agreement between Citigroup and Wipro Technologies, the global IT services business of Wipro Ltd., calls for at least 500 million dollars in service revenues over the period of the contract.

Citi Technology Services, founded in 2005, has 1,650 employees and services Citi businesses in 32 countries. It expects 80 million dollars in revenue this year.

"Citi has played a pioneering role in leveraging technology for banking," said Wipro joint chief executive Girish Paranjpe. "We are pleased that our domain expertise and infrastructure management capabilities positioned us as their partner of choice."

"This transaction is consistent with our efforts to improve our operating leverage while we focus on our core banking competencies," said Citi chief administrative officer Don Callahan.

Citigroup has been hit hard by the global financial crisis and the US government stepped in last month to guarantee more than 300 billion dollars in potential losses and pump another 20 billion dollars into the company.

All rights reserved. copyright 2018 Agence France-Presse. Sections of the information displayed on this page (dispatches, photographs, logos) are protected by intellectual property rights owned by Agence France-Presse. As a consequence, you may not copy, reproduce, modify, transmit, publish, display or in any way commercially exploit any of the content of this section without the prior written consent of Agence France-Presse.