For the employees at the regional office here this did not come as a surprise as they had been anticipating this for a long time and are now only awaiting some sort of an official announcement.
"We all were aware that something of this sort was coming. The proposal to merge with some private bank was in the offing for the last 18 months," a senior official at the regional office told Business Standard.
The regional office at Himayatnagar monitors the operations of ING Vysya's 180-strong branch network and supervises the entire workforce in both the states.
To a question on jobs, an official of the bank who had been working for the bank for a long time, said, "We are all waiting to see what sort of arrangement is being worked out," and added, "any merger will take at least two years to complete. So it's like a wait and watch approach for us".
Whether they had any doubts on losing jobs, some women employees at the consumer loans branch opposite the regional office, said, while the issue of job security was of prime concern to them, they were expecting "enough clarity from the CEO-designate very soon".
Employees at the Ameerpet branch here too expressed similar concerns. "The banks have enough time to work on the process. And we hope our doubts will be cleared soon," said an employee.
Even as the merger news is keeping the existing staff occupied, the regional office is in a hiring mode and is currently undertaking job interviews for the position of sales and marketing executives.