CBA slashes Sydney jobs, moves roles offshore to India

Commonwealth Bank has been slammed over announced Australian job cuts, accusing senior “fat cats” of having no concerns over the decision.

The Commonwealth Bank is slashing more than 40 roles and sending them offshore taking the total to 500 jobs from the major bank being sent overseas in the past two years, according to the Finance Sector Union (FSU).

The FSU said customers will suffer from a loss of local knowledge and service delivery with 42 jobs lost and being sent “half a world away in India”.

All the Australian jobs cuts are in Sydney with the positions including 39 operations team members, three operations managers, one business strategy senior manager and one service manager.

Julia Angrisano is national secretary of the Finance Sector Union. Picture: Hollie Adams/The Australian

FSU national secretary Julia Angrisano said that Bankwest customers in particular should be angry about the offshoring.

“The Commonwealth Bank has recently transitioned all of Bankwest’s business banking customers over to the CBA. Now the service they receive from their bank will be from half a world away,” she said.

“Bankwest customers who had a reasonable expectation that they would be looked after by experienced CBA staff in Australia have every right to feel betrayed.

“The decades of institutional knowledge lost with these Australian job losses is of course of no concern to the CBA fat cats who make these decisions. That this loss will result in a diminution of customer service for hardworking small business customers across Australia is of no consequence, relative to the imperative of the bonus and the insatiable crave to profiteer.”

It comes at a time when the major banks are facing a Senate inquiry and heavy criticism over moves to close the last remaining bank branches in regional towns across Australia too.

The union said hundreds of roles had been sent offshore. Picture: NCA NewsWire/Damian Shaw

The FSU said CBA sent 100 jobs to India in August 2021 and another 270 jobs in September last year with a cumulative total since 2021 now over 500.

“Business banking customers of CBA should be in no doubt that this gratuitous decision to cut Australian jobs and relocate work to India was not made with their best interests at heart,” Ms Angrisano said.

A CBA spokesperson said the bank employs about 52,000 people across Australia, New Zealand and its international operations, including its wholly owned business in India.

“Around 80 per cent of the group’s total employees are based here in Australia,” they said. “Since 2021 the CBA Group has recruited more than 10,000 people of whom the majority are Australian-based. CBA India was established to help deliver our strategy of building tomorrow’s bank today for our customers.”