British banks hang up on India

Santander yesterday added its name to a growing list of British firms dumping Indian call centres to bring customer service operations back to the UK.

From this month, all of Santander UK's 1.5 million monthly customer service calls will be answered in this country. Britain's third-largest bank is creating 500 jobs in Glasgow, Leicester and Liverpool to absorb the calls that would have gone to Bangalore and Pune, taking the group's UK contact centre staff to 2,500.

The move is a response to demand, according to Santander UK chief executive Ana Botin, who is struggling to improve the bank's customer service performance after it was rated third worst in the country last year.

Other firms, such as BT and Powergen, have also brought call centres back to the UK.

Experts said many of these companies had made the switch to avoid rising costs: as sterling has fallen, the Indian economy has rocketed, with wages set to rise by 12 per cent this year.