VHA shifts Sydney finance dept north

VHA will move its Sydney-based finance roles to its Brisbane centre, the mobile telco revealed today as its merger plans begin to take shape.

Come March next year Vodafone's Sydney-based finance department will begin to be shifted to its Brisbane centre, which is currently used as a collections centre, a VHA spokesperson confirmed today. VHA today said its Brisbane facility would be its key collections and credit centre.

Today's announcement by Tasmanian Premier David Bartlett that the state would become VHA's call centre headquarters was the first major move VHA has made to consolidate its operations following the May merger.

Details of the incentive package that the Tasmanian Government offered to VHA to prevent it shutting its call centre operations over there have not been released. Bartlett today said details would be released once the package was finalised. The deal was negotiated with the Tasmanian Department of Treasury and Finance.

The losers from the Tasmanian deal will be the undisclosed number of call centre staff in Brisbane who were told today that they would be retained until June 2010.

Spokespeople for VHA said it currently had 250 staff based in Brisbane, which includes call centre, credit and collections staff, but declined to disclose the number of call centre staff it held there. However, Bartlett today said 100 more positions would be created in Tasmania in June to support the extra load of 3 Mobile's two million customer base.

Today's announcement by VHA was the first customer-facing component of the merger starting to take shape. VHA has said it hopes to have finalised its head office staff selection process that is currently under way by the end of September.

VHA has already announced that it would be in-sourcing its retail outlets, bringing its headcount to over 5000.