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India most desired for setting up back offices by banks: Randstad

New Delhi: Attracted by a vast talent pool of business graduates, more than half of the world's top 40 banks have set up shops in India to run their back-office operations that may generate nearly 25,000 jobs in the coming time, according to HR consultancy Randstad India.
"When compared to other sectors, banking and financial services industry has been the major driver of back office operations in India in the last decade," Randstad India and Srilanka chief executive Moorthy K Uppulari said.
While initially these banks leveraged back offices to manage their automated business processes and client service requests, in the recent years, the focus has been expanding to areas of finance and accounting, procurement services, and knowledge services, Mr. Uppulari further said.
As per the HR firm, India has emerged as the 'most desired destination' for banking office operations for global MNCs owing to large number of qualified graduates in business and finance.
Close to 25 of the world's top 40 banks - from countries like the US, the UK, Switzerland, Germany and France - have set up their back offices in India with a few more global banks expected to open such offices in 2014, it said. These banking back offices are likely to recruit nearly 25,000 people, Randstad India said.
"In niche banking back office positions, candidates with strong finance & accounting background with qualifications like CA, ICWA, MBA (Finance) and commerce graduates are much sought after," Mr Uppulari noted. "They are being hired as specialists in areas like credit risk analysis, debt management and fund performance."
Among the various cities, the Delhi-NCR, Mumbai, Pune and Chennai are the top cities in India where these back offices are being set up. "Availability of a vast pool of talented candidates is the main reason and additionally relative cost advantages offered by locations like Pune and Chennai make them preferred location choices," Mr Uppulari added.
Meanwhile, countries like Philippines, Singapore and Poland are also becoming attractive alternate to India as they also bring in the cost and language advantage.
Randstad India also said that it will take more than cost advantage to dethrone India owing to its skilled manpower availability, scalable infrastructure and matured business processes.
Sources: PTI