Wall Street banks are poised to lean more on their Indian business support centers after President Donald Trump surprised U.S. corporations with his new $100K fee on new applications for the widely used H-1B visa program, according to a media report.
Citigroup (NYSE:C), JPMorgan Chase (NYSE:JPM), and Goldman Sachs (NYSE:GS) are among the biggest employers of India’s global capability centers, which manage operations such as risk management, tech assistance, and trading support, Bloomberg News reported. The centers provide low-cost services, but give firm access to skilled talent not easily available in their home markets.
Indian and the U.S. tech industries use the H-1B visa program to bring skill workers from abroad to roles in the U.S. Finance and consulting firms are also big users of the program. Some 72.3% of all H-1B visa beneficiaries are Indian-born workers for the U.S. fiscal year ended Sept. 30, 2023, the article said.
While the new $100K fee for H-1B visas are intended to protect U.S. jobs, the new rules could instead lead companies to turn to Indian tech hubs, including Hyderabad, Mumbai, and Bengaluru, which already employ more than 1.9M, Bloomberg said, citing analysts.
“Unless new restrictions are placed on offshoring, foreign banks will lean even more on their Indian capability centers,” Umesh Chhazzed, founder of recruitment firm Anlage Infotech, told Bloomberg.
U.S. banks are among the biggest employers in the global capability centers, allowing them to shift work to India to avoid the pricier H-1B visas. The Bloomberg story said Citi (NYSE:C) has 33K staff in the country, Bank of America (NYSE:BAC) has over 27K, and JPMorgan (NYSE:JPM) has 10K.
Still, the KBW Nasdaq Bank Index (BKX) slipped 1.0% in late Monday afternoon trading.
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