Household HSBC Watch

This is an arrogant blow to some professionals.

LONDON: A section of HSBC’s employees in Sheffield are up in arms for being asked to train staff from India who would then take over their jobs, lending a new twist to outsourcing from Britain to India. The request to train the Indian staff has angered workers in the HSBC Accounting Centre in the town who were told this week that their department would be closed and moved to Hyderabad. Local reports say that up to 40 Sheffield staff will be hit by the closure, but all have been told by the bank that they will be provided new roles in the company, if they wanted them. The ‘new roles’ were not defined but night not be in the employee’s field of study. An HSBC spokesman confirmed that the Accounting Centre, which pays the bank’s bills as well as processing the expenses of its staff, would be closing.

Contrasting position: Energy firm Powergen is to close its Indian call centres and revert to dealing with customers in the UK. The move follows a barrage of complaints about the standard of service the Indian centres provide. The decision dramatically reverses the trend set by many UK companies in recent years of transferring their call centres overseas.

An estimated 50,000 jobs left the UK for India