SyndBank starts BPO unit

The Syndicate Bank has opened SyndBank Services Limited, a wholly-owned BPO unit of the bank.

The BPO unit, the first of its kind by any nationalised bank, will initially have 100 people from among the bank's employees. It will provide services on filing IT returns, maintenance of credit card, debit card and ATM related data, and back office support to various bancassurance products.

Inaugurating the bank's BPO wing, Union finance minister P Chidambaram said that Syndicate Bank was the pioneer in implementing new ideas and technology in various fields.

"Syndicate Bank was the first nationalised bank to implement a core banking solution (CBS) and with the launch of the BPO unit, the bank has added another first to its profile," he said. According to N Kanthakumar, the bank's CMD, the BPO unit floated by the bank will provide back office functions like rating of borrowers for assignment of credit risk for Basel II purposes and work relating to tier II bonds.

The unit will render maintenance and reconciliation services for government business transactions and provide guidance and maintenance of records for PF, pension and gratuity trusts, he added.

The bank has announced that with the opening of the 525th CBS bank, also by Chidambaram, 60 per cent of the bank's total business now comes from these branches.

The bank has planned to convert all its 2,000 branches under CBS by 2008-09 and to introduce mobile banking facility by the end of the current fiscal.