Lloyds TSB is gearing up to roll out one of the largest converged networks in Europe, a £500m 70,000 phone VoIP infrastructure linking all the bank's branches and cash points.

The contract, signed with IBM, calls for a dedicated fibre, DSL and MLPS network supporting voice and data across Lloyds TSB's European operations. The IP infrastructure is expected to take 20 months to complete.

"This project will allow us to increase the cost efficiency and enhance the flexibility of our IT infrastructure by providing staff with a more efficient and responsive service for our customers," said Igor Andronov, director of IT at Lloyds TSB.

The financial institution claimed that the network will reduce incremental bandwidth costs, allowing it to deploy web-based or bandwidth-hungry applications that would not previously have been commercially viable.