The US Coast Guard (USCG) has awarded Unisys a contract to provide IT support services to the 'USCG Finance Center', which manages financial services for the organisation and multiple US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) agencies. The contract extends an existing agreement held between the two companies since 2003.

The contract, which could be worth upto US$ 24 million, will be played out in an initial five month period followed by four one-year options, exercisable at the government’s discretion. The estimated value of each option year is between $5 million and $6 million.

Under the agreement Unisys will continue to provide functional and technical support for the USCG Finance Center’s Core Enterprise Suite, a comprehensive financial and procurement system used by major U.S. Department of Homeland Security agencies, including the USCG, the Transportation Security Administration, and the Domestic Nuclear Detection Office. The Core Enterprise Suite serves as the financial infrastructure for many of the nation’s most important homeland security initiatives.

The system processes invoices and payments to thousands of DHS vendors and suppliers, as well as expense reimbursements for more than 100,000 personnel. It also manages agency asset reporting, and provides updated budget information to DHS. Unisys support services help the Coast Guard achieve the high performance and full time availability of the mission-critical system’s core financial management applications and technology, including Oracle Financials, Oracle databases and UNIX servers. The Unisys team also will help to support the DHS data centers and to install, manage and support disaster recovery solutions for the Core Enterprise Suite.

Tom Conaway, Managing Partner at Homeland Security Unisys Federal Systems, commented "The USCG Core Enterprise Suite is vital to the day-to-day operations of the USCG Finance Center, which supports many of our nation’s most important homeland defense initiatives. Unisys is pleased to continue our work with the center, providing IT support and expertise that enables the complex and extensive accounting infrastructure to meet evolving requirements and to be managed efficiently and effectively”.