Santander bank reverses call-centre job exodus to India and admits British is best

THE banking giant Santander has created 150 new jobs in Glasgow after customer opinion forced it to move call centres back to the UK from India.

The UK's third biggest bank, which is owned by Spanish parent company Banco Santander, said the move had created 500 jobs, with the others in call centres in Liverpool and Leicester.

New recruits have been taken on from within the three cities and trained up to 1 July, when the call centres went live.

Santander said it took the decision after customers told them that dealing with an offshore call centre was "a frustration that can lead to dissatisfaction".

Customers had been dealing with Indian call handlers for the past eight years.

Abbey, as it was then known, outsourced its call centre operations in 2003 to two centres in India - one in Bangalore and one in Pune.

Ana Botin, chief executive of Santander UK, said: "Improving the service we offer is my top priority. Our customers tell us they prefer our call centres to be in the UK and not offshore. We have listened to the feedback and have acted by re-establishing our call centres back here."

The three additional centres will handle an estimated 1.5 million calls each month. They join 2,500 staff already working in Santander's UK call centres.

The announcement follows a series of encouraging signs for the Scottish economy, particularly in the financial sector.

It comes in the week a new report by PricewaterhouseCoopers and the CBI revealed job numbers in Britain's financial services industry are rising at their fastest rate since the start of the credit crisis.

And last month, the Lloyds TSB Scotland Business Monitor suggested that Scotland's economy was finally turning the corner with a 2 per cent net increase in turnover for firms in the past quarter.

Business leaders welcomed the move by Santander as recognition of the value of the skills and work done by UK call handlers. Iain McMillan, director of CBI Scotland, said: "This is a welcome return of Santander call centres to the UK, particularly with Glasgow picking up a share.What this shows is the quality and skills of the people working in our call centres is very good indeed."

"This is being recognised, not only by British companies, but by the Spanish owners of one of our largest financial service providers."Santander UK is on a drive to improve customer service after topping the customer complaint tables published by the Financial Services Authority (FSA).

The FSA said Santander UK dropped to second place behind Barclays in the second half of last year after receiving 165,000 complaints about its banking services.

The bank has created 1,000 new staff in customer-facing roles, a specialist call centre team to deal with customers who need an issue with Santander resolving and a dedicated staff helpline to assist with customer issues.

Santander said it has reduced the volume of complaints in the last year, and 80 per cent of all complaints were now dealt with within 48 hours.

A Scottish Government spokesman said: "Scotland has established a global reputation for financial services excellence.

"We are pleased that these strengths are being recognised and welcome that 150 new jobs are based in Glasgow."