HSBC to move 4,000 jobs to India, Malaysia, China

By Victoria Cutler

LONDON: Global banking giant HSBC Holdings Plc said on Thursday it would move 4,000 UK call centre and back-office processing jobs mainly to India and Malaysia but also to China over the next 2-1/2 years.

The group, which owns a major retail bank in the UK, said the moves were aimed at staying competitive.

"Every effort will be made to accomplish the changes without involuntary redundancies but it will not be possible to avoid these entirely," it said in a statement.

HSBC joins a line of firms, including insurer Aviva , telecoms firm BT Group Plc and retailer Tesco in switching jobs to Asia to take advantage of a relatively cheap, skilled English-speaking work force there.

UK financial workers union UNIFI said it would fight the bank's plans, which it said represented the biggest ever, single export of finance jobs from the UK to Asia, and was prepared to take industrial action if necessary.

"The gloves are off," said UNIFI official Rob O'Neill.

"The world's local bank has shown that if the job can be done cheaper somewhere else then they'll move it... We will fight tooth and nail to get the bank to reconsider its actions."

HSBC plans to close five UK back-office processing centres in Sheffield, Birmingham and Brentwood in England and Swansea in Wales by the end of 2005 as part of the measures.

Bill Dalton, Chief Executive of HSBC Bank plc said the moves were the next step in a process started three years ago of moving UK-related work to the group's service centres in Asia.

"As one of the world's largest financial services companies, HSBC has a responsibility to all its stakeholders to remain efficient and competitive," Dalton said in a statement.

"This includes increasing productivity and allocating resources to both developed and emerging markets."

Attracted by the huge labour cost advantage and the many skilled, English-speaking workers in India, multinational companies including General Electric and Citigroup have also shifted back-office functions there.

Shares in HSBC Holdings closed eight pence or 0.9 percent lower at 854 pence in London.

 Reuters