Credit Suisse will recruit more than 1,000 staff in its India-based tech operations this year, as the country becomes the bank’s global technology innovation centre. When the recruits are on board, 25% of the bank’s global IT workforce will be in India.
The new recruits will be developers and engineers working with the technologies required as the company digitally transforms.
They will include IT professionals with capabilities in cyber security, data analytics, cloud computing, application programming interface (API) development, machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI), and will use agile and DevOps delivery methods, said Credit Suisse.
“This is a continuation of Credit Suisse’s India growth strategy that has seen the bank hire 2,000 IT employees in the past three years,” said a statement from the bank.
It plans to base senior global roles within India so local leaders will be developed from within the new intake.
John Burns, head of India IT at Credit Suisse, said the recruitment plan reflects the company’s commitment to India and the state of Maharashtra in particular, where it has bases in the city of Pune. The new recruits are part of the bank’s vision to establish it operations there as a global technological hub.
“To support the growth of our IT presence in India, we believe empowering our employees to lead global delivery and drive innovative solutions enhances value creation and productivity for the bank globally,” he added.
Prashant Bhatnagar, global head of experienced recruiting for technology at the bank, said: “We provide our employees with a dynamic environment that fosters skills development and knowledge sharing, and we provide opportunities for engineers and developers to be at the forefront of technology and innovation.”
The bank’s focus is on hiring entry-level talent who have up to one year of experience.
Demand for skills in the latest digital technologies is high, as the Covid-19 pandemic has forced businesses to change how they operate and serve customers.
Burns said the pandemic has accelerated the use of digital technologies for the company: “We have effectively employed collaboration tools to enable seamless external and internal communication to support teamwork and effective delivery.”
Indian cities give large enterprises access to huge talent pools as well as ecosystems to support digital transformations. India was once attractive to large businesses as a low-cost location for IT services, much of which were high volume repetitive roles, but today India is a location for senior global IT roles and higher value work. It is now the country that is home to the largest proportion of Credit Suisse workers.
In 2019, Barclays Bank opened a tech centre in Pune to attract new tech talent in India and to enable existing staff in the country to collaborate better. The Pune operation, covering 1.1 million ft2, became Barclays’ biggest operation bar its London headquarters.
