Last week, BNP Paribas announced it had outsourced desktop and support functions in the UK to Atos Origin in a £50m deal that saw 120 staff shift across to the tech services firm.

Nick Mayes, senior consultant at IT research firm Pierre Audoin Consultants, says: “The UK investment banking sector is a prime target for all the major western IT services organizations, such as IBM Global Services, EDS, Accenture, Atos Origin and Capgemini – as well as the top Indian services vendors.”

Andrew Todd, head of corporate and investment banking at Atos Origin UK, tells us the firm’s targeting more business in the UK: “We have deals with Barclays and ABN AMRO, but we have our sights set on tier-one banks. I would give it six to 12 months before we have one on board.”

The firm now employs 50,000 people globally and 6,000 in the UK. Last year it sealed a deal with Dresdner Bank, which saw 200 IT staff move to Atos, and it has a similar contract with French bank Calyon and good relationships with Société Générale and Crédit Agricole.

Commerzbank penned a similar deal with HP, which saw the lift-out of 100 employees.

Mayes tips business processing outsourcing (BPO) to surge in 2008: “If you look at the last time there was a downturn, in 2001, there was an acceleration in outsourcing activity as it was seen as a fast way to save money on IT. I think we’ll also see an increasing amount of new applications being developed out-of-house this year.”

Todd agrees there’s great potential in the BPO space: “There are a lot of areas in BPO that are still in an infant state, which would be nice to have. However, there are still some cultural and ownership issues that surround them, but they will grow.”