Forget Lower Manhattan, Bangalore is the new hub for global banks
ANZ has more staff in the Indian city than at its Docklands headquarters. Its competitors are there in force, as are the world’s biggest players in finance.
In the middle of a sprawling business park in Bangalore, some 4000 employees – all full-time ANZ staff – work in a building of a similar size to its Docklands headquarters in Melbourne.
Come lunchtime, the downstairs cafe is packed as staff enjoy cheap thalis and dosas served on plastic trays. Upstairs, they support many critical functions for ANZ, including processing mortgage applications, opening new deposit and credit card accounts, checking customers are not laundering money, crunching data for the bank’s economics team, and preparing reports for Australian regulators.
James EyersSenior ReporterJames Eyers writes on banking, finance, payments, regulation and emerging technologies. Based in Sydney, he is a former legal and investment banking editor at the AFR and has been a business journalist for more than 20 years. Email James at jeyers@afr.com.au
