A global custodian has offshored approximately 15 Sydney-based jobs to Manila and Mumbai, while its regional head of client service has effectively made her own role redundant.
JPMorgan Worldwide Securities Services sent out redundancy notices last week as it formalised plans to send accounting pack preparation work to its Mumbai ‘centre of excellence’, and reconciliation work to its centre in Manila.
“All of the high touch, high value-add, client-focused activities will remain based in Sydney – including tax reporting, performance analytics, unit pricing and securities lending,” said the Australia/NZ CEO of JPMorgan WSS, Jane Perry.
“We had hoped moving work to the centres of excellence would have no local headcount impact, but due to the dramatic decrease in attrition levels, it was unfortunately necessary to take some action…The positive in the situation is that the decreased attrition reflects our progress as an employer of choice, although I don’t kid myself that the economic environment hasn’t also contributed.”
Meanwhile, JPMorgan WSS’ head of client service for the Asia-Pacific, Nicki Smith, has been let go after spending the last two years building client service teams in Australia, Hong Kong and Japan.
Perry said she was “enormously appreciative” of Smith’s work in putting together the three discrete teams, but now they were in place there was no need for a regional co-ordinating role.
The role running Australian client service went to Steve McCullagh, who had been doing the same for JPMorgan WSS’ European clients from its Bournemouth site, before heading home to help run his family business, a Melbourne art gallery. He was subsequently attracted back to JPMorgan, in its Sydney office, by Smith and Perry.
The use of specialist ‘centres of excellence’ would continue at JPMorgan WSS, however Perry forecast the local headcount of around 600 would continue to rise, citing growing cross-sell opportunities between JPMorgan WSS’s, investment banking and treasury services divisions.
