Wall Street banks may lean on Indian GCCs, boost hiring after H-1B shakeup

Trump's $100,000 H-1B visa fee can push Wall Street banks to hire more Indian engineers and rely heavily on GCCs in India, according to a report by Bloomberg

Amid the uncertainty on one-time $100,000 fee on H-1B visa applications, Wall Street banks are likely to increase hiring of Indian engineers and rely more on their Indian global capability centres (GCCs), according to a Bloomberg report. The move was announced by US President Donald Trump’s administration and it still lacks clarity.

 

American banking giants such as Citigroup, Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan Chase, and Bank of America are already major employers of India’s GCCs, which handle critical tasks and technology-driven work. Experts say these banks are likely to rely even more on these centres to maintain smooth operations if the Trump administration continues its tough stance on H-1B visas.

   

US banks are among the largest employers in India’s GCCs, with Citigroup employing around 33,000 staff, Bank of America over 27,000, and JPMorgan about 55,000, according to Bloomberg.

 

Umesh Chhazzed, founder of recruitment firm Anlage Infotech, told Bloomberg, “Unless new restrictions are placed on offshoring, foreign banks will lean even more on their Indian capability centers.”

 

Abizer Diwanji, founder of NeoStart Advisors LLP, added, "Banks would be calibrating a new strategy for the global capability centers. It appears there will be onshoring of jobs to India, adding new job functions". 

 

Similarly, Avinash Vashistha, chairman and CEO of Tholons, wrote on LinkedIn that the new visa norms will force a “reinvention of global talent strategy.” He said, “Companies like Amazon, Microsoft, and Google, major H-1B beneficiaries, will double down on their GCCs and R&D hubs in India. The ‘war for talent’ in the US is about to get a lot more strategic, as the most innovative minds will now be based where cost-effectiveness and talent pool converge — right here in India. America’s loss is India’s gain".

 

The H-1B woes for Wall Street

 

The H-1B visa reform announcement "came out of the blue," Jamie Dimon, chief executive and chairman of JP Morgan, told the Times of India. In a separate interview with CNBC-TV18, he said that the announcement caught everyone off guard. "We had a lot of phone calls over the weekend," he said.

 

Dimon added that the company will engage with stakeholders and policymakers. "For us, visas matter because we move people around globally - experts who get promoted to new jobs in different markets."

 

Are Indian GCCs ready?

While many experts predict that the visa policy could lead banks to rely more on GCCs and prompt Indian professionals to return from the US to join centres in Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Pune, and Gurugram, some see it as a wake-up call for Indian GCCs to take on more value-added work, Business Standard reported.

 

India currently hosts around 1,760 GCCs, a number expected to exceed 2,000 by next year, according to Nasscom. Many of these centres, extensions of their headquarters, handle advanced technology across sectors like retail, automotive, healthcare, and banking, with increasing control over product R&D, analytics, and design. Global executives often operate from these centres, managing teams worldwide. 

 

Shalini Pillay, partner and India leader for GCCs at KPMG India, said the current scenario is a wake-up call for GCCs to take on more value-added work and become indispensable to their parent organisations, noting that not all have reached full maturity. A BCG report found only 8 per cent of Indian GCCs are top performers, with 66 per cent average and 20 per cent above average.