British finance major Abbey National is planning to shift 600 more call centre jobs to Bangalore, in a move to shift its processing businesses from Southampton and Middlesbrough.
Abbey is undertaking a review of all its operational sites to improve cost savings. It hopes to reduce duplication of roles, transfer work to larger sites and shift some operations offshore.
Outsourcing and India: Complete Coverage
Abbey's mortgage operations, a joint venture with IT services supplier EDS, is likewise under review.
Abbey National is keen to reduce the 50-plus centres across the country in which the bank has business operations.
It may be mentioned that in January this year Abbey closed its Warrington and Derby units and shifted about 400 jobs to India. It already employs 100 people in its life insurance business based in Bangalore.
Besides Abbey, British financial major Barclays Bank, announced in December 2003 that it intended to move out administrative functions by setting up call centre operations having 500 employees in India.
Even, British banking group HSBC is planning to outsource a part of its IT operations to an Indian company. This, according to the bank major, marks a major culture change for the organisation, which has harnessed all its IT requirements in-house.
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