ANZ to move back office jobs to India

SYDNEY - The ANZ intends to move some jobs to India, although the bank said the change would not involve customer-oriented staff.

ANZ spokesman Paul Edwards said the bank currently employs about 650 people in Bangalore and expects to increase this to 1,000 over the next 18 months.

He said the bank was planning to shift back office roles to Bangalore over the next two to three years, but he could not confirm the number of jobs that will move.

"It's fair to say, however, there are likely to be more operations roles in Bangalore over time and fewer operations roles in Australia," Mr Edwards said.

"At the same time, ANZ will be creating new jobs and opportunities in customer facing areas and this means jobs in Bangalore will rise and jobs in Australia will also rise.

"Any number (of jobs to be moved) at this point is pure speculation. We hope to minimise job losses."

Mr Edwards added the bank has had an external hiring freeze in place for the past month and that this would continue for the forseeable future to assist in the transformation agenda.

He added that the bank had no plans to shift its customer service operations outside of Australia.

"No customer facing staff will be moved to Bangalore," he said.

This is the first time ANZ has looked to shift jobs outside of software development offshore as part of this transformation agenda.

"The transformation agenda is new in areas outside technology, particularly in operations roles, so we don't know how it will affect other individual Australian staff at this stage," Mr Edwards said.

Financial Sector Union National Secretary Paul Schroder said that more than 1,000 jobs were being considered for the move to India.

"We understand 1,100 (jobs are) under consideration," Mr Schroder said.

"The majority of these people are very highly skilled."

- AAP