JOIN USDanske Bank opens B'luru IT captive
Copenhagen- headquartered Danske Bank, which has a customer base of over 3.7 million, on Wednesday opened its new IT and support services centre (captive technology) in Bengaluru with an investment of $12 million.
Inaugurating the new centre at the RMZ Ecoworld (SEZ Campus), Danske Bank member of the board and COO Jim Ditmore said, “In the era of digitalisation, IT (information technology) is a critical component to any services company’s success, especially in the banking and financial services. With that in mind, Danske Bank has decided to make a successful investment in IT, and establish a strategic location outside of its home country Denmark. We have one more centre in Lithuania.”
Since the past seven years, the bank had an outsourcing arrangement with ITC Infotech. Ditmore said, “ITC is an important contracting vendor. They provide IT staff across the wide range of capabilities. Previously, we had 700-800 staff with them….Today, we have a captive place that will deliver solutions exclusively to our product services….But we will continue to augment the facilities with 200-300 staff from ITC. They were good partners with us, but we will be taking the lead now.” In all, the bank aims to hire 800 employees, including those coming over from ITC Infotech.
The new facility will be operational with 900 seats and has a provision to grow up to 1,200 seats, Danske IT & Support services centre Managing Director Pankaj Gupta said.
When asked about the recent Greece turmoil, Ditmore said, “Europe is going through a slow and steady recovery. UK, Ireland, etc. are doing well and Nordic countries in varying degrees.”
Minimal exposure
On Greece, Ditmore said, “From an economic point, it is relatively small. I think markets have pretty much calculated the impact of Greece one way or the other. We have minimal exposure to Greece. We are primarily a Nordic Bank and we obviously continue to concentrate on these regions only.”
Danske Bank, one of the largest banks in the Nordic Region of Europe (Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, and Sweden), has 329 branches spread over 15 countries. Danske IT and Support Service India Private will provide IT development and consultancy services to Danske Bank. The company had revenues of around Rs 29.65 crore in 2014-15. The group has a market capitalisation of approximately 200 billion DKK (Danish Krone).