IBM this week scored a 10-year, $1.1 billion contract to help Banco Sabadell, Spain's fourth-largest private bank, modernize its IT infrastructure, and migrate its applications to the cloud.

The agreement calls for IBM to migrate the financial institution's existing applications to a hybrid cloud environment while helping the company keep up with ever-changing security and regulatory requirements. These network and infrastructure enhancements will also extend to United Kingdom-based bank TSB, which was acquired by Banco Sabadell in 2015.

"This agreement with IBM helps enable us to advance into the modernization and transformation of our technology infrastructure and in the simplification of our operational model," said Miguel Montes, Banco Sabadell's chief operations and people officer, in a statement. "With this, we are not only continuing to increase our resilience, security and scalability capabilities, but we can also adopt key elements of the new technology paradigm like cloud, the intense use of data, and artificial intelligence."

According to IBM, the collaboration is intended to simplify the bank's dispersed IT infrastructure and improve customer experiences around the globe by allowing data, services, and workflows to be managed across multiple clouds.

To realize these goals, IBM will leverage several Red Hat technologies including OpenShift. IBM purchased the open-source software company for $34 billion in late 2018, in a deal that closed last summer.

IBM says its technologies combined with Red Hat's software will allow Banco Sabadell to deploy an on-container architecture, cloud-native applications, and modernize existing applications.

According to Juan Zufiria, SVP of IBM global technology services, an open, hybrid cloud platform, built around IBM's services is well suited to deal with the challenges faced by financial institutions like Banco Sabadell.

"We are excited to collaborate with Banco Sabadell to help advance its cloud journey that can bring innovation to meet the ever-changing demands of its clients and help address the complex security and regulatory requirements of today's financial industry," he said.