BNZ is going ahead with moving lending services jobs, which it describes as operational roles, from its New Zealand operation payments department to Accenture in India.
Earlier this month Interest.co.nz reported BNZ was looking at outsourcing about 50 of a total 80 lending services jobs. This comes after 70 to 80 jobs in BNZ's sanctions and fraud team were relocated to Accenture in India last year, with the local staff affected redeployed.
A BNZ spokesperson on Wednesday confirmed the proposal was going ahead, but was coy on details.
"We have been consulting with some colleagues who support lending activities on proposed changes to the way we operate and have confirmed a new operating model. We are unable to give an exact number of staff that will be impacted as we are committed to supporting our colleagues and identifying redeployment opportunities where possible. These are operational roles and are not related to frontline banking services," the BNZ spokesperson said.
Interest.co.nz was told BNZ confirmed the plans were going ahead on Tuesday, with about 50 of 80 jobs in the lending services centre being moved to Accenture in India. Interest.co.nz was also told staff in this department play "a vital link" for BNZ customers buying and selling property, getting loan and security documents prepared, plus serving as a contact between frontline bankers and customers and their solicitors to help with settlements. Additionally interest.co.nz was told some BNZ staff whose roles are being shifted to India are expected to help train the new workers in India.
"At BNZ, we’re committed to serving our customers brilliantly and delivering market leading products, services, and expertise," the bank spokesperson said.
"We want to bring the very best global expertise and capability and deploy it locally, to enhance our customers’ banking experiences. To help us bring global best practice to New Zealanders, we partner with a number of international organisations, such as Accenture, Microsoft, and Amazon."
Union 'extremely disappointed'
Callum Francis, First Union's national organiser for finance, said the union's "extremely disappointed" BNZ plans to; "offshore key banking roles in an attempt to force down their wage bill despite making a statutory net profit of $762 million in the six months to March and being one of the richest employers in the country."
First Union says it has nearly 500 members at BNZ, and estimates about 40 union members are affected by the outsourcing.
"Offshoring New Zealanders’ jobs robs experienced bank workers of options, deprives others of the opportunity to get into banking, drives down local wages and represents yet more of Kiwis’ wealth being shipped offshore because of sheer greed at the top," Francis said.
"BNZ should be leading the way for New Zealand companies by investing in their workforce, not clearing a path for offshoring projects that many other companies, including other major banks, are now lining up to follow. We expect successful employers to help grow the economy and keep New Zealanders in work.”
"It’s a cowardly project that represents the absolute worst in corporate thinking; that an organisation’s only obligation is to their bottom lines and not the staff who make that possible," said Francis.
Francis said First Union will be fighting for the fair redeployment of experienced members in comparable roles and resisting any attempt from BNZ to force members into unwanted redeployment opportunities to cover other understaffed departments like the customer call centre. It will also be pursuing voluntary redundancy for members "who no longer have confidence in their continued work with BNZ."
"It’s a cliche but a true one: BNZ are putting profit above their people, and turning their backs on experienced bank workers just because they can. We can and should expect more from employers," Francis said.
23 Comments
This is happening across all the banks right now, the restructures are all in small batches, but cumulatively the big 4 are offshoring thousands of jobs this year.
The funny bit is that the results are reliably terrible, and is all usually gets unwound within 5 years.
Fonterra getting in on the act.
Its incoming chief finance officer Andrew Murray said part of the proposed changes to finance operations included outsourcing work to India and the Philippines.
"[It] includes co-sourcing elements of our transactional work with an existing partner who has facilities in Bangalore and Manila," Murray said.
"The changes... relate to us optimising core operational efficiency to support the entire business."
While I get the thought process this has been happening for years, long before the working from home craze.. I was at telecom in 2008 when they outsourced 100s of jobs to Manila.
This is frustrating, especially from a company making such big profits. And some people out there think companies wont replace humans with AI. As soon as AI can do the job anywhere near as good as humans the human jobs are gone...
If the job can be performed overseas much cheaper then surely those who work in the office would be first to go since the business has to pay for the premises to support them. Someone WFH doesn't need the office or anything in it so, if the model is embraced and performance doesn't drop off, then business could save more by making everyone WFH.
Society is becoming more accustomed to remote interactions, enabled by improving technology. Stand at a bus stop or walk through town and see how many people are interacting with their phones rather than the person beside them.
In the hierarchy of reasons to lay someone off I venture working from home is down the list - cost first, availability of talent/performance second, attitude third. WFH could fall in the third category if there was pushback against returning to the office.
Good thing we can rely on agriculture to pay for these "outsourced" services. Oh hang on, once synthetic food becomes the rage and real food farmers are methane taxed out of business, NZ can grab these jobs back from the Phillipines with our more competitive wages. All good.
I was stunned when i joined co-operative bank and had to call up with an issue.
First, a human answered the phone instead of an automated routing system.
Second, that human was able to solve my issue there and then. No waiting for the appropriate department to call me back in 24 hours.
Absolutely agree. I was recently in Canada and had a problem with my credit card. I called Westpac and within only two or three minutes was talking with 'Cameron' who not only spoke English fluently with an NZ accent but was able to understand and respond to my problem. I realised how much easier the call was simply because the communication was straightforward. I don't mind what nationality someone is (or where they are in the world), but I need to be able to communicate easily with them. I would pay extra for that! 😅
This would be a great data set to get hold of.
Migration movements are there to inspect and give us a feel for how they might be impacting economy and society. But outsourced jobs based offshore, we can't see how many people here have been replaced by a person overseas can we?
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