NAB examines offshoring 400 jobs

NAB may send around 400 IT jobs overseas in a bid to improve operational efficiencies.

A spokesperson from NAB confirmed that the bank has requested proposals from providers to offshore portions of its IT operations, with a spokesperson for the bank telling ZDNet Australia that it is "in the process of considering whether offshoring is part of what we need to do".

Enterprise information management, SAP software development and the testing of banking operations are areas which could be offshored, said the spokesperson, although it was "not restricted to those areas".

Offshoring security, however, was not part of the proposal, the spokesperson said: "Security is a matter we take very seriously."

Infosys, Satyam, IBM and Accenture have already submitted proposals that will be examined by the NAB teams concerned, according to the spokesperson.

Offshoring is "not necessarily the only way of improving efficiencies", the spokesperson said, with the bank also looking into the simplification of processes and the removal of bureaucracy and duplication.

According to the Sydney Morning Herald, an internal NAB document relating to the bank's "Technology Expo" -- a national gathering of NAB's IT staff in June -- said that every IT position could be "assessed over time". The NAB spokesperson told ZDNet Australia, however, that this document was only meant to outline the extent of offshoring possible and that it was not NAB's target to lower the number of its internal IT employees to 200 -- as discussed at the Expo.

In the last two years, 374 jobs have been offshored, the spokesperson said, but at the same time NAB has increased headcount by 900 in other areas.

The people whose jobs would be outsourced have the possibility of moving into other areas in the organisation, according to the spokesperson, who said: "There is a strong redeployment and retraining process in the NAB."