STOCKHOLM - IBM Corp. has signed a $2.6 billion US deal with the Nordic and Baltic region's largest financial group, Nordea, on a joint venture to enhance the bank's information technology services, including online banking. The new venture, which starts Nov. 1, will employ about 900 people, Nordea said Wednesday. It will have an initial annual cost base of up to $397 million US and will "bring significant cost savings to Nordea." "In terms of absolute costs there will be a slight decrease during the next three years despite important transformation investments and volume growth," Nordea said. The agreement will change Nordea's fixed IT production cost structure to a model where the bank pays only for use of the systems and technology provided by IBM's on-demand services. Several technological platforms will be consolidated into one location, and networks and desktops will be standardized, Nordea said. IBM Global Services is the world's largest information technology services and consulting company, which generated more than $36 billion US in 2002. It has operations in more than 160 countries and employs 180,000 of IBM Corp. 320,000 workers globally. In Canada, IBM employs about 20,000 people. Nordea, with more than 1,300 banking and insurance offices in 24 countries, was formed in 2000 in a merger between Finland's leading commercial bank, Merita, and Sweden's Nordbanken. Since then it has acquired Denmark's second-largest financial group, Unidanmark, the Norwegian Christiania Bank and Sweden's Postgirot.