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JP Morgan Chase may increase staff in Philippines, India

abs-cbnNEWS.com, Reuters | 11/04/2008 9:24 PM

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The chief executive officer of JP Morgan Chase said Tuesday that the US finance giant may increase its staff in the Philippines and India in the coming years.

JPMorgan may increase staff in India and the Philippines in coming years because they serve as ``major international hubs for outsourcing of support functions,'' JP Morgan CEO Jamie Dimon told Bloomberg.

JP Morgan operates an outsourcing center in Manila. It recently opened a 14,000-seat call center facility in Taguig City as part of its first phase expansion plans in the Philippines. The target is to grow its call center staff to 24,000 as it continues to service credit card clients in the US.

The financial services firm also recently mentioned of plans to reopen a local equities brokerage business.

Business process outsourcing experts have forecasted that the sector will benefit from the financial crisis as US firms outsource some or additional business functions to countries, like the Philippines, to survive the crunch.

JP Morgan Chase is one of the largest banks in the US and one of the oldest financial firms in the world. It acquired Bear Stearns and Washington Mutual this year after the two went belly up as massive losses from subprime-related investments hit hard.

For over 40 years, JP Morgan has built a strong presence in Asia and has a large network of offices in South Asia including Vietnam, Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore and the Philippines.

Meanwhile, in an interview with Reuters, JP Morgan Asset Management chief executive officer Jes Staley said that they could consider hiring more people next year if the global situation does not get worse.

"We have been affected by the financial crisis. But when the markets come back, we have been active in Asia and emerging markets, we are going to be active for our clients and active for the markets," Staley said.

"We actually had close to $170 billion of net inflows into the asset management business for the first 10 months of the year, a lot higher than last year, as a lot of people were moving cash to JPMorgan," he added.

The asset management arm, which manages $1.2 trillion in assets, has cut its headcount to about 900 from around 1,600 at the beginning of the year, as global stock markets tumbled on fears of a prolonged global recession and amid a wave of bank failures and government-led bailouts.

The US firm now has half of its total assets outside of the United States, and has increased its investments in Asian countries over the last few years.