Long before global capability centres (GCCs) became a buzzword, American and European banks, insurance companies and conglomerates such as GE were setting up back offices in Delhi-NCR to do a range of business processes related to financial services. American Express and Bank of America were among the early ones. Some of those captive units have not only expanded but many more have followed, to run global banking and insurance operations out of their units here.Today, the Delhi-NCR region supports the who’s who of global finance – Fidelity International, NatWest, Barclays, Macquarie, BlackRock, MetLife, Guardian Life, Sun Life and others. Even niche players like Baker Tilly ASA, specialist in tax services, and Osttra, which offers post trading services, are banking on talent here to run global operations.They have established largescale GCCs to support tasks like loan processing, financial risk modelling, compliance, data analytics, AI-led research, HR functions and building mobile apps. Some have offices in multiple cities in India. But for more than 25 major global players in banking, insurance, and asset management, NCR is either the sole India hub or their largest base outside home markets.
Lots of CAs, including from JaipurA mix of talent availability at scale, cost efficiency, and connectivity has made Delhi-NCR attractive. “Delhi-NCR today boasts of the country’s largest concentration of chartered accountants and financial analysts – key roles in banking and insurance ecosystems,” says Ajay Sethi, managing partner at Baker Tilly ASA India, part of Baker Tilly International, a global top10 accounting network. Jaipur, 250 km away, is a major hub for chartered accountancy (CA) preparation and practice, and is a big source of such talent.Cost advantage is also significant. “Work that costs $100 in New York can be done for $30-$35 in Noida or Gurugram,” says Manoj Marwah, financial services GCCconsulting leader at EY India.London-headquartered Barclays has operations in five Indian cities including Noida. “India is home to Barclays’ largest workforce outside the UK,” says Praveen Kumar, CEO of Barclays Global Services India. The Noida team contributes to AI-led transformation and is exploring GenAI use cases from code generation to data automation and digital assistants to improve speed, productivity and personalisation. “We’ve led innovations like QR code adoption and cloud transformation while our analytics capabilities continue to sharpen our understanding of customer behaviour and emerging market trends,” Kumar says.Fidelity International, which offers investment solutions and services to more than 2.8 million customers globally, set up a GCC in Gurugram in the early 2000s, and now has 4,500 people across Gurugram, Bengaluru and Mumbai. Upasna Nischal, India site head, says India is Fidelity International’s largest location outside the UK. “Our centres of excellence for areas like AI and tax are based here,” she says. Global functions including process excellence, HR information systems, data management and investment research are also based out of India.For UK-based post-tradeservices provider Osttra, the Delhi-NCR team is the largest globally. Osttra provides services to global banks and investment managers. Babu Thiagarajan, head of technology for India, says Osttra’s Gurugram office is responsible for core product development, client services, and global operations across its 9,000-member network. The Osttra team processes over 80 million trades a month. The GCC led the creation of an AI model based ₹dynamic credit distribution capability’ that improves credit allocation in post-trade finance.100k BFSI GCC employees in NCREY India estimates that DelhiNCR hosts around 100,000 employees in financial services GCCs, roughly 18% of India’s GCC headcount, second only to Bengaluru (30%). Delhi-NCR centres handle a rich mix of tasks: about 65% in operations and 35% in technology. Talent hired includes risk analysts, PhDs in economics developing credit scoring models, etc, and thousands in compliance, finance and procurement roles.“There are a lot of patents filed related to financial risk modelling and analytics from this region,” notes Marwah. The region is also seeing increasing demand for mobile app developers and talent that can help improve user interface and user experience (UI/UX).Sethi of Baker Tilly ASA India says employee attrition rates in the region are also lower – averaging 9.1% versus the national average of 18%.“The narrative is shifting,” says Sethi. “NCR is no longer just a low-cost back office. It’s a centre of excellence that powers the global financial engine.”
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