Global companies plan $356bn outsourcing to India for next five years

It suggests that the firms achieve 39 per cent cost savings by moving operations to low-cost centres. Of financial-services firms transferring functions offshore, nearly half are targeting India, which has a huge market of IT professionals who earn much lower wages than elsewhere.

Ireland and South Africa are also attractive offshore centres, with China, Malaysia and Australia growing in popularity, the study found. Deloitte Research estimates that more than a million jobs — or about half of the estimated relocations — will move to the Indian Ocean rim over the next five years.

The survey shows that banks and insurance firms are transferring offshore such functions as application development, coding and programming, accounting and finance, operations, processing and administration, contact support and call-centre operations.

Since decisions to go offshore are significant ones, 90 per cent of these are made by the CEOs, chief financial officer, chief information officer or chief operating officer. And as the size and complexity of the offshore moves increase, approval by the CEO is set to increase to 45 per cent from 20 per cent.

Among other conclusions are that the offshore trend is driving a radical shift in the structure of the global financial-services industry and this transformation is just beginning.