By Neena Bhandari, IANS,
Sydney : ANZ bank, which in July had announced that it will move 238 back office jobs from Wellington and Auckland to Bangalore, is axing jobs throughout its branches in New Zealand.
According to the banking union Finsec, the staff was told of the redundancies at a special meeting convened Thursday.
“When they announced the offshoring of hundreds of jobs to India they promised to increase frontline staff numbers and customer service”, Finsec campaigns director Andrew Campbell told the New Zealand Press Association (NZPA).
“At a time when this billion dollar bank continues to make record profits it should be investing in its front line, but once again, it is putting profit before people”, Campbell said.
At the Thursday meeting, the bank announced a review of the branch network with a view to reducing staff numbers; a freeze on recruitment which will lead to immediate staff reductions through attrition; and asked frontline staff to consider voluntary redundancy, reports NZPA.
ANZ employs more than 37,700 people around the world.
Earlier, Finsec had accused the Australian-owned bank of being greedy as the work is said to be done at a quarter of the cost in India.
Banks say that jobs are being outsourced to improve efficiency. While some staff is redeployed others are offered redundancy packages.
Another of Australia’s four leading banks, the National Australia Bank (NAB), has also announced that it will outsource 500 jobs to India by year-end.
Other Australian banks that have outsourced IT jobs to India include Westpac, St George and the Commonwealth Bank.