The global investment bank said staff numbers at centers in Chennai, Mumbai and Delhi will be doubled to 2,400 in total by the end of 2004, to expand the bank’s services operations. The centers currently provide back-office processing for ABN Amro operations in 18 countries as well as cash management and payment services for operations in 14 countries.
ABN Amro is just one of a number of large global investment banks sending shared services operations east, particularly to support their Asia-Pacific operations, but also for global back-office services. For example, Citigroup has 3,000 employees in global contact and processing centers in India, while the most prominent is HSBC, which has around 2,000 staff in group back-office and contact centers in India, with a global services center in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, and a back-office technology center in Shenzen, China.
Most recently, Credit Suisse First Boston LLC opened its fourth largest global back-office and IT support center in Singapore. The Zurich, Switzerland-based investment bank leased 30,700 square feet of office space to house 350 staff by the end of 2004.
However, offshore experiences have not been positive across the whole sector. In December, for example, New York-based financial services firm Lehman Brothers stopped outsourcing its IT helpdesk to Indian services giant Wipro as a result of what it said were poor quality services.
This article is based on material originally published by ComputerWire
