National Westminster Bank Plc’s National Westminster Bancorp will open a $31m service centre in Scranton, Pennsylvania and move 1,300 back-office jobs from several New York metropolitan locations: it also plans to hand 275 positions in the consumer and indirect lending operations areas over to Electronic Data Systems Corp under a facilities management contract; once in Scranton, NatWest said additional jobs will be created, bringing the employee count there to at least 1,500 by year-end 1995; the facility is to help bring its cost/income ratio in line with regional bank competitors and support its plans for growth in the North American market; it estimates that the transfer of back-office functions to a cheaper region, plus increased use of technology, will bring net savings of $17m annually after two years, $25m a year after 10 years.
