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HSBC unveils 2nd global service centre in Hyderabad

Syed Amin Jafri in Hyderabad

The Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation's second global services centre in India was inaugurated in Hyderabad on Monday to process back-office work of this overseas group's subsidiaries.

P V Rao, chief secretary, Andhra Pradesh government, formally declared open the HSBC Global Services Centre at a simple ceremony.

The first HSBC Global Services Centre is located at Hitec City, Madhapur. The HSBC has expanded its presence in Hyderabad by setting up the second Global Services Centre at Banjara Hills.

"The HSBC, one of the world's largest banking and financial services organisations, has set up major facilities for handling global services in this city. The rapid expansion of HSBC global services centres in Hyderabad will encourage many companies to look at this city as a serious option for locating back-office operations and IT-enabled services," P V Rao said.

The state chief secretary said that the Andhra Pradesh government was keen to encourage IT-enabled services in the state capital.

"The overall slow-down in the IT industry elsewhere means greater pressures on margins for companies and consequently major corporates are looking at ways to cut costs to remain competitive," he observed.

"Out-sourcing and out-location of back-office operations is an important way of cutting costs without compromising on quality. With its trained manpower in the IT sector, Hyderabad will emerge as one of the most important locations for the financial services industry and IT-enabled services in future," PV Rao pointed out.

Zareer J Cama, chairman, HSBC Electronic Data Processing India Private Limited, said that the Global Services Centre opened on Monday was the third such centre under the HSBC network.

The first such back-office processing centre for HSBC was established in 1995 at Guangzhou in China to undertake back-office processing work for HSBC subsidiaries in Hongkong and UK.

He said that the two Global Services Centres at Hyderabad employed more than 650 staff as on date and this number was expected to grow to 1,200 staff by the end of the year 2001.

The first HSBC Global Services Centre commenced operations in July 2000 though it was formally inaugurated by Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu in October last year.

The first centre, occupying 30,000 square feet area at Hitec city, was currently processing back-office work for HSBC Group subsidiaries in the UK. The second centre, spread over a 110,000 square feet site, would also undertake back-office work for UK subsidiaries.

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