Expansion mode

Mumbai, April 27: Standard Chartered Bank is planning to expand the Indian operations of its captive BPO, Scope International, at a time when the industry is taking recourse to cost-cutting.

The bank will ramp up the Bangalore and Chennai centres of Scope, which cater to its Indian and the UAE operations, respectively.

Expansion work at the Chennai facility is expected to be over by next March.

StanChart said the headcount at the two centres could double from 1,100 at present.

However, the bank was silent on investment.

“Scope International has played a key role in Standard Chartered’s success in India and elsewhere. The upscaling of Scope International’s call centre operations will support the bank’s plan to increase customer engagement,” said Neeraj Swaroop, regional chief executive, (India and south Asia), StanChart.

StanChart is the largest foreign bank in the country. Scope International is a wholly owned “global shared services centre’’ of the group. It began operations in Chennai nine years ago.

Scope has nearly 7,300 staff, about 9 per cent of the StanChart group’s workforce, and services most of the 70 countries where StanChart operates.