Outsourcing To China

Those of you who are fed up with ringing your "local" bank or financial institution hoping to talk to a "local" operator, only to find yourselves talking to an operator based in India, may be less than happy to learn that the fetish for outsourcing financial services helplines etc continues.

Indeed, the call centres are likely to be moved even further away from the UK, as the Chinese have now been identified by financial institutions as a source of even cheaper labour.

A report, titled Global Financial Services Offshoring Report 2007, issued by Deloitte notes that India continues to be the global offshoring hub. However, it is likely to lose its share of two-thirds of offshored staff in the next 10 years due to competition from China.

Quote:

"India remains offshoring's hub but is likely to lose share in the future. The DTT GFSI group estimates that about two-thirds of global offshored staff is employed in the sub-continent. China threatens to be India's principal offshoring competitor.

Some 200 million Chinese people are currently learning English, providing a growing pool of skilled labour that may compete with India over the next 10 years. China's share of offshore labour is already rising, with a third of financial institutions now having back-office (mainly IT) processes based in China."

Needless to say, the financial institutions will never bother to consult with their customers over their outsourcing arrangements or the security of their outsourcing arrangements.