Gen-i says it has won a competitive tender to offer contact centre services to the Commonwealth Bank of Australia – maintaining at foothold at the company that used to be its largest customer.

The Telecom services division declined to put a dollar value on the five-year contract.

It will cover around 1500 calling agents as CBA introduces new technologies to allow more flexible working arrangements, and moves from traditional on-premise PABXes to cloud-based IP services. 

Gen-i has been CBA's incumbent call centre services provider since 2000.

In April 2009, Telstra replaced Gen-i as CBA’s main telecommunications provider.

Gen-i chose not to re-tender for the contract, worth around $1 billion over ten years.

The Telecom unit said it was re-focusing on IT and telco services for smaller business.

Gen-i staff continued to work for CBA into 2011 as the contract was wound down.

Telecom shares [NZX:TEL] were up 3.35% to $2.47 in late trading.