Barclays opens large tech operation in India, hiring thousands

Barclays Bank has opened a tech centre in Pune to attract new tech talent in India and enable existing staff in the country to collaborate better.

The centre, announced in May last year, has added 9,000 more staff to its India-based workforce, taking it to 19,000 in total.

The Pune operation, covering 1.1 million sq ft, is Barclays’ biggest bar its headquarters in London. It will enable the bank to bring different tech teams in India under one roof to improve collaboration.

It is one of the bank’s tech campus network and follows a similar opening in Glasgow in July 2018, with 2,500 staff planned, as well as a centre in New Jersey in the US. These make up Barclays’ global delivery network for operations and technology services.

Barclays plans to use the Pune centre to get the most out of existing staff in India as well as to source more talent. Mark Ashton-Rigby, chief operating officer at Barclays said: “Our new Pune campus will help to further unlock India’s potential, reaffirm our commitment towards the government’s Make in India initiative, and promote the UK-India economic partnership.

This campus will play a pivotal role in creating a working space that truly facilitates collaboration and accelerates innovation, transforming the way we work and do business.”

“As a Technology hub for the Bank, co-locating our teams will help drive greater collaboration and adoption of agile ways of working for our colleagues, thus enabling us to deliver faster and more innovative solutions for the Bank, and our customers and clients,” said Praveen Kumar co-CEO at Barclays’ global service centre in India.

He said the new centre will also help Barclays attract talented engineers. “The state-of-the-art Barclays’ Pune campus will help us in attracting best-in-class engineering talent and create an exciting and dynamic work culture.”

Large multinationals are investing more in offshore operations, with many seeing India seen as the optimum location.

Global companies are choosing Indian cities such as Bangalore, Hyderabad and Pune to open technology hubs as an extension of the business rather than a third-party service provider. These cities boast huge talent pools and have diverse business ecosystems that sit in close proximity to tech talent.

Peter Schumacher, CEO at management consultancy Value Leadership Group, which surveys large enterprises, said Barclays’ investment is “very significant”.

“The Indian services and innovation ecosystem is stronger than it has ever been. Companies are taking a more strategic view towards their Indian operations,” said Schumacher.

“Our interviews show that companies big and small see the real long-term opportunity of having centres in India. They are growing their global network to build new advantages, by combining different tech, such as artificial intelligence, machine leaning and databases, to solve problems and create new advantages.

“So many people are returning to India after decades of experience in Silicon Valley,” he said. “All this knowledge is being enthused into the workforce.”