Financial services giant Bank of America has outsourced the management of its benefits administration operations in the United Kingdom, Ireland, and Canada to ExcellerateHRO, a service provider jointly owned by Electronic Data Systems and Towers Perrin. <P> Under the five-year deal, ExcellerateHRO will provide Bank of America operations in those countries with benefits plan services for a total of about 10,000 employees. The contract extends an existing deal between Bank of America and ExcellerateHRO. <P> Financial terms weren't disclosed. <P> EDS and Towers Perrin jointly launched ExcellerateHRO in March 2005. To date, the company has inked more than $550 million in human-resources services contracts. <P> Human-resources business process outsourcing is the fastest growing segment of the HR services market and will grow at a compound annual rate of 16% in the United States, reaching $18.9 billion in spending by 2010, according to market researcher IDC.