Currency hedging, cost management, operational efficiencies, coupled with robust demand for outsourcing IT services helped top four local business process outsourcing firms manage the subprime crisis and rupee appreciation.

While the banking, financial and insurance segment accounts for a significant portion of the revenues to the top four BPO firms, the sub-prime crisis made a very small dent in their margins compared with what market analysts had predicted.

Except for WNS Global Services -- which took a hit due to the bankruptcy of First Magnus Financial Corporation -- the other three managed to post a positive growth.

For Genpact, despite the mortgage and credit market turmoil in the US, there has been no significant adverse impact on its overall results. Rather on a sequential basis, the company's net income grew 130 per cent.

The company said, "Mortgage services business has seen a small revenue decline as processing volume has diminished from clients, but revenues from mortgage services business do not impact Genpact's overall performance and has been more than offset by growth in other areas." 

The story is the same for the other two players as well. Though WNS had a net loss this quarter, it, however, retained its upward guidance due to the sales pipleline it has for the year.

Neeraj Bhargava, group CEO said, "We were able to deliver over 35 per cent quarter-on-quarter growth in revenue. Our sales pipleline is at its strongest for the year and we have been particularly successful with expanding existing client relationships during the quarter."

The Nasdaq-listed EXL Service also announced an upward guidance.

For 2007, the company gave an upward revenue guidance between $176 million and $178 million from $168 million to $172 million previously.

Rohit Kapoor, COO and co-founder, said: "Certainly, on year-on-year basis the margins have come down, but we've been able to increase the profitability on a sequential basis. Our volume growth and operational efficiencies have helped us do so."

For the third quarter, the company has hedging gains of approximately $2.3 million.

Ananda Mukerji, MD & CEO, Firstsource, is confident of the growth in next quarters.

"Strong performance in the first half along with the strategic acquisition of MedAssist is expected to put us on a higher trajectory. We continue to see increased opportunities in all our verticals as well as in the domestic market," he said.