Bendigo Bank rebuffs pressure to reveal staff impact of outsourcing

Bendigo and Adelaide Bank is resisting union and other pressure to reveal the full extent of job losses expected to stem from two IT and "process optimisation" outsourcing deals.

The Finance Sector Union (FSU) said its attempts to understand the people impact of the outsourcing deals at meetings with the bank were rebuffed.

"At a briefing this morning, Bendigo Bank refused to outline the number of staff that would be impacted, but the FSU anticipates it could be in the hundreds – with some reports indicating up to 1000," the union said in a statement.

Bendigo signed a seven-year IT service delivery deal with Infosys and six-year deal with Genpact earlier on Thursday.

The bank said that two technology partnerships would affect teams in its technology and business operations, but claimed not to have a “detailed” understanding of the full impact of the changes.

The FSU said that it was “aware” that cuts would go well beyond the bank’s technology teams, impacting a broad cross-section of the bank's operations, including agribusiness, lending assessment and fulfillment, third-party banking fulfillment and lending operations.

In the bank’s consumer division, the union said it expected that customer processing and wealth operations, customer remediation, mortgage help, operational excellence, finance, financial crime operations and contact centre functions teams would all be impacted.  

Bendigo Bank declined to respond to the union’s claims when contacted by iTnews today.

FSU national secretary Julia Angrisano said that Australian banks were in a "race to the bottom" in their adoption of AI and use of offshoring arrangements.

Bendigo's desire for "process and operational improvements" from the Infosys and Genpact deals could suggest an increased application of AI technology, although the bank has not clarified the scope of the works.

It has previously signed a deal with Google Cloud for access to the vendor's Gemini AI technology.

Bendigo Bank's spokesperson told iTnews that staff that stayed with the bank would be able to learn new skills, and have access to better tools and processes, leaving them better able to “focus on deepening relationships with customers”.

Bendigo Bank's restructure follows similar moves by NAB and ANZ Banking Group, which also announced job cuts and changes to their technology operations late last year.

Last August, the Bank of Queensland signed an artificial intelligence deal with consulting firm Capgemini, to develop AI agents for the bank. The FSU later revealed by that the bank would offshore 200 contact centre roles to a Capgemini-run centre in India.

In general, all major banks in Australia have set up offshored technology operations in various parts of Asia, including India and Vietnam.