Author: RUSSELL EMMERSON
Publication: The Advertiser (Tuesday 17 Nov 2009)

BANK SA is returning eight credit-card support jobs to Adelaide from India while its parent, Westpac, remains in a holding pattern about its intention to send offshore other back-office roles.

Westpac Group confirmed the changes in a statement yesterday, saying the "consolidation" reversed a February 2008 decision to move the positions offshore.

"Subsequent to that original decision, the Westpac Group has reviewed the function and decided to consolidate all these support roles back into one central location within Australia," the company stated.

"This decision in no way reflects a change to our approach to offshoring and should be viewed only in the context of our desire to centralise these functions in the one location, which in this case is in Australia."

BankSA did not agree to requests for interviews, but the Finance Sector Union was quick to hail the decision as a failure of offshoring.

"The FSU congratulates Westpac for recognising that offshoring is a failed strategy and that customers expect their bank to employ Australians in Australia," national secretary Leon Carter said. "Eight jobs is a start but the banks' employees and customers expect all offshored jobs to come home."

Westpac managing director Gail Kelly last month said the group would offer a more local service to "delight" customers, while the group announced in May it was suspending further decisions to relocate support roles offshore.

It is understood the bank will continue to review the location of positions, but does not expect to make any decisions for some time.