The end of Investment banking IT in Singapore.

[vink2]

Everyone knows that lots of guys living in posh condos work as IT specialist for Investment banks in Singapore such as Credit Suisse, UBS, CITI, SCB, ANZ, Barclays, etc.

Now the latest news in the industry:
Credit Suisse is moving lots of jobs to Eastern Europe (Poland)
UBS is not hiring here to much, but already has large tech IT in Ukraine and Russia.
CITI - no information yet, probably stays in Singapore.
SCB - moving lots of jobs to China.
ANZ - I heard about India.
Barclays - moved lots of IT jobs to Ukraine (including front office development).
Bank of America - not sure, but looks like they have some involvement with Russians already.


Personally I predict that property prices will go down. Those who work as IT engineers, should know that he may lose their jobs tomorrow and not be able to find a good one.

Guys, you opinion, please, especially those who who work for banks: please share what do you feel.

[Wd40]

Old news buddy. Most technologists though dont own or rent condo. They own/rent cheapo HDBs or worse a cheapo room in cheapo HDBs. There are only 4 or 5 MNC banks here that have huge development and support roles in Singapore and they hire mostly vendor payroll staff and pay peanuts. Barclays is an exception, they used to hire mostly perm staff until recently.

The impact is less demand for HDB rentals and the supply of HDBs is also reducing so net net rents still go up.

The impact on condos is minimal, because those few AVPs and above who will be selling will have other locals lapping up.

[Brah]

Asia is catching up with the rest of the world

[rajagainstthemachine]

from what i know bank of america is going to set up a huge presence in India
upto around 8000 jobs approx.

[JR8]

from what i know bank of america is going to set up a huge presence in India
upto around 8000 jobs approx.

Can they do that on a stand-alone basis nowadays?

But in my day the only way in was via a JV with a local bank.

p.s. and is it likely to me retail or commercial?

[vink2]

from what i know bank of america is going to set up a huge presence in India
upto around 8000 jobs approx.

8000 jobs? I believe it is not only IT.

[zzm9980]

UBS has a location at CBP that is staffed almost entirely by Infosys. I'd expect any IT expansion will be more Infosys employees. They're easy to terminate on a second's notice.

[Wd40]

from what i know bank of america is going to set up a huge presence in India
upto around 8000 jobs approx.

Can they do that on a stand-alone basis nowadays?

But in my day the only way in was via a JV with a local bank.

p.s. and is it likely to me retail or commercial?

Yes. Back in the mid 90s India opened up its economy for most sectors for foreign companies to come an set up fully owned companies. Before that as you said it had to be via JV.

That saw the huge rise and multitudes of growth for the Indian economy.

At the moment there are still a very few sectors where a foreign players cannot fully or even partially own a company. But even that is getting relaxed. They recently passed a resolution for FDI in retail so the Walmarts of the world are coming. Insurance and Aviation too are other sectors where foreign players were restricted, but thats opening up.

But the case that you are telling is no problem at all, many banks have fully owned captive developement and back office centers there including CS, Barclays, RBS, Morgan Stanley, ANZ, GS, HSBC, Soc Gen etc.

Even BofA has a huge development center in Gurgaon, I think they will only be expanding that.

The only bank that has big development center in Singapore but havent explored India yet is a french bank called Credit Agricole. So their employees are safe for the moment. But then they too hire cheapo vendor payroll guys for most roles.

[Sergei82]

...Credit Suisse is moving lots of jobs to Eastern Europe (Poland)
...
Barclays - moved lots of IT jobs to Ukraine (including front office development).
...

CS: Poland is only for European employees. APAC - all backoffice moved to Pune, support is moving to Pune, recently they're expanding in Bangalore too (our support for Singapore has 2 parallel teams in Pune and Bangalore as of recently - only a few months back it was Singapore only)
Barclays: Ukraine is again - for European offices. APAC - all backoffice is already in Pune.

India India India INDIA INDIA ... INDIA

[vink2]

...Credit Suisse is moving lots of jobs to Eastern Europe (Poland)
...
Barclays - moved lots of IT jobs to Ukraine (including front office development).
...

CS: Poland is only for European employees. APAC - all backoffice moved to Pune, support is moving to Pune, recently they're expanding in Bangalore too (our support for Singapore has 2 parallel teams in Pune and Bangalore as of recently - only a few months back it was Singapore only)
Barclays: Ukraine is again - for European offices. APAC - all backoffice is already in Pune.

India India India INDIA INDIA ... INDIA

For back office processing any European county will be out of competition, I think.
For quality development any European country will be the best choice.

[Wd40]

This had to happen. When all this offshoring to Singapore started 1USD was equal to 2SGD and 1GBP = 4SGD

The currency appreciation itself has nullified most of the benefits coupled with the fact that no salary raises have been possible in the last several years causing lots of disgruntled employees and hiring new/replacing staff in Singapore is impossible considering nobody wants to relocate to Singapore to earn just 6k a month. Banks or rather their vendors dont want to pay more than 6k. I am not even touching on other aspects like increased real estate costs for companies and inflexibily of expansion.

Coincidently the Indian currency has moved in the exact opposite direction. It has like depreciated by 30% in the last 4-5 years

So all this had to happen. In fact when I came here in 2009 I was cracking my head wondering why the hell are they getting Indians transported here to work offshore when they can pay half the salary to the Indian in India and the Indian will be happier there than here. Its all just falling in place now.

[rajagainstthemachine]

from what i know bank of america is going to set up a huge presence in India
upto around 8000 jobs approx.

Can they do that on a stand-alone basis nowadays?

But in my day the only way in was via a JV with a local bank.

p.s. and is it likely to me retail or commercial?

They can be be standalone, you no longer need to have a JV with a local bank anymore. Case in point HSBC , Citibank, Standard Chartered, American Express even the local DBS bank in Singapore has branches in India

I think BOA is looking at moving call center operations ( how do i know this? ) I work for a company that sells communication products chiefly call center products, so when you hear about BOA placing orders for a fairly large communication system you know they are moving jobs over to India.

Most American companies have come in looking to offshore jobs and then quickly realize the amount of potential India has and then start serving the local market.

[Wd40]

UBS has a location at CBP that is staffed almost entirely by Infosys. I'd expect any IT expansion will be more Infosys employees. They're easy to terminate on a second's notice.

Another thing that will most likely happen is Infosys will pitch in to do the job offshore for half of the cost by moving those jobs to India and the employees there are most likely Indian so very easy to do.

Most likely the business that the developers are supporting has nothing to do with Singapore, so absolutely no reason that they need to be here.

[rajagainstthemachine]

UBS has a location at CBP that is staffed almost entirely by Infosys. I'd expect any IT expansion will be more Infosys employees. They're easy to terminate on a second's notice.

Infosys! ha! they are probably going to suck your blood out by charging outrageous manpower rates, our company used to do business with them to develop some of our products in the early 2000's
bloody bloodsuckers!

I wouldn't work in companies like TCS,Infosys and Wipro because your worth as an employee is non existent.

[Wd40]

UBS has a location at CBP that is staffed almost entirely by Infosys. I'd expect any IT expansion will be more Infosys employees. They're easy to terminate on a second's notice.

Infosys! ha! they are probably going to suck your blood out by charging outrageous manpower rates, our company used to do business with them to develop some of our products in the early 2000's
bloody bloodsuckers!

I wouldn't work in companies like TCS,Infosys and Wipro because your worth as an employee is non existent.

Those 3 companies are to software what the chinese sweatshops are to hardware