Lloyds TSB plans to transfer 800 more admin jobs from
the UK to India, and create 200 new IT roles in the subcontinent to
serve the bank's UK business.
The 800 administrative jobs, which will transfer to Indian
locations by the end of next year, are from the bank’s insurance
group, its Cheltenham & Gloucester mortgage arm, and group
operations activities. The 200 IT posts will be new positions.
A Lloyds TSB spokeswoman said the company would try to find
alternative work for any staff affected by the offshore move but
added that no compulsory redundancies were expected. She stressed
that IT jobs in the UK were not at risk.
Lloyds TSB has already moved 1,300 administrative jobs offshore
and said the extra staff in India would help it meet demand for
services.
In August, a trade union challenged the right of the bank to
send sensitive personal information about its customers offshore to
India for processing. The union wrote to the Information
Commissioner seeking a ruling over whether Lloyds TSB was entitled
to send data offshore without the written consent of each
customer.
The complaint follows Lloyds TSB's announcement that it would
close a call centre in Newcastle and replace it with one in Mumbai,
India, by this month.
However, the announcement by the banking group is likely to
raise concerns that the jobs of full-time directly employed UK IT
staff could increasingly be at risk from offshore outsourcing. So
far, most UK jobs outsourced to India have involved call centre or
administrative roles.