Bifurcation at infinity for equations in spaces of vector-valued functions

New existence conditions, under which an index at infinity can be calculated, are given for bifurcations at infinity of asymptotically linear equations in spaces of vector-valued functions. The case where a bounded nonlinearity has discontinuous principal homogeneous part is considered. The results are applied to 2π-periodic problems for two-dimensional systems of ordinary differential equations and to a vector two-point boundary value problem