British banking group HSBC is planning to outsource a part of its IT operations to an Indian company. This, according to the bank major, marks a major culture change for the organisation, which has harnessed all its IT requirements in-house.

Niall S K Booker, general manager and chief executive officer, HSBC India, said: "The intention to outsource is a significant change in our culture. We will be looking at outsourcing the IT services in a small way, mainly to look into the regulatory aspects of operating in India. We usually go by the tendering process to select a vendor and most probably we will look for an Indian firm for this."

Outsourcing and India: Complete Coverage

HSBC develops and applies advanced technologies to efficient and convenient delivery of banking and related financial services. In India, the bank provides self-service banking via some 150 in-branch and off-branch ATMs, 24-hour phone banking and Internet banking.

The banking major deploys extensive IT systems for trade and corporate banking services with real-time access to a centralised information database, instantaneous inter-city transactions through online connections between all branches, besides a state-of-the-art treasury dealing system.

Satish Janardhanan, head of IT, HSBC India, said, "As a global organisation faced with the challenges of staying ahead of competition, we continue to evaluate options of outsourcing IT development and infrastructure support projects when they are established as being viable.

We have internal guidelines for the process of evaluation and empanelment of vendors. We have an established methodology for the award of specific work assignments to the vendors."

Janardhan, however, declined to comment on the kind of investment HSBC makes on its IT requirements.

He added that the bank might prefer Indian IT companies, as they are global leaders in price and performance.