Scope on the lookout for clients outside the group

Scope International Pvt Ltd, the wholly-owned captive BPO of Standard Chartered Group, now plans to look for clients outside of the group.The company expects a deal to materialise by the year end.

"We will offer our back-office core banking deliverables to clients who operate in non-competing geographies like the US where the Standard Chartered Group does not have a presence. The services on offer will be those that we are specialists in," said Sreeram Iyer, group head (global shared service centres), Scope.

Scope's strengths in back-office banking services will be provided to financial institutions and banks in both retail and wholesale banking segments.

It will also work towards identifying new banking processes within the group that can be transitioned to itself.

Iyer, who was earlier COO of Scope, has been given additional responsibilties of handling Standard Chartered's other BPOs in Kuala Lumpur and two smaller operations in Africa.

"We have to see how we can leverage the experience between the Indian operations and Kuala Lumpur to support our group companies as they continue to grow organically and inorganically in India and China," added Iyer.

Scope will add another 500-700 employees by the end of 2005 to its current 3,500 headcount. It will start work on a 50,000 sq ft facility to take its total office space to 100,000 sq ft in Chennai shortly.

"An internal study has determined that from 2004 the net savings we accrue to the group is to the tune of $80 million annually. In 2004 we had a topline of $75 million. We have a 12-14 per cent growth target for 2005," remarked Iyer.

The other banking majors who have a back-office presence in India include Citibank and HSBC.