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Fidelity Investments to move operations to India
Fidelity Investments, UK's biggest retail fund manager, will move a chunk of its UK operations to India, reports Nabanita Sircar.
Fidelity Investments, the UK's biggest retail fund manager, is to move a chunk of its UK back-office operations to New Delhi, becoming the latest in the long list of British companies moving operations to India.
Fidelity confirmed yesterday that it would start expanding its New Delhi office by several hundred staff in the middle of this year.
Executive director of Fidelity, Paul Kafka, believes the company will save about 50 per cent on overheads by shifting back-office and clerical tasks to India. He said that the decision to expand the Delhi office would come at a cost to the fund managers UK back-office operations, based in Tonbridge, Kent, and Lower Kingswood, Surrey. But he added that it is too early to predict the number or nature of job cuts.
In December last year Fidelity said, in a memo, that its aim was to make New Delhi an additional fully functional servicing location for our Mutual Fund and Institutional businesses by the end of 2004. It said the decision to expand its Indian operations followed the resounding success of Fidelity Technology India, a systems development company set up in Delhi in late 2001.
Kafka said that the Indian company, which employs about 100 people, developed systems of outstanding quality and added, There is a massive pool of highly skilled talent there and we are very keen to tap into that.
According to plans New Delhi will initially service Fidelity's UK, continental European and Asian markets. But over time this will be expanded to include all of its worldwide markets. Presently the company employs more than 1,000 full-time and contract staff in its back-office operations in Britain.
The jobs at risk include those in account administration, customer service, computer systems development and operation, and support services for mutual funds and institutional business. The company hopes that any UK job cuts will be achieved with minimal staff impact and through natural wastage.
Trade union Amicus, is growing increasingly concerned by the recent pattern of the finance sector to outsource jobs to lower-cost employment areas. Dave Fleming, national officer of Amicus, says the trend is having a serious impact on UK jobs.
