Barclays sells US call center to Indian outsourcer

Barclays' credit card business in the U.S. has struck a five-year deal with Indian outsourcer Firstsource Solutions to run a call center in Colorado Springs, Colorado.
The value of the deal could be as much as US$80 million, according to a notice on Friday sent by Firstsource to the Bombay Stock Exchange.

Barclays opened the operations center in 2005 to primarily handle customer-service calls for its U.S. credit card business. The call center handles about 15,000 inbound calls each day and employs about 370 people, all of whom will continue to work with Barclays' customers. The operations center also provides collection and fraud-prevention services, Barclays said.

The assets of the Colorado Springs facility will be owned by Firstsource, of Mumbai, which plans to use the facility to serve U.S. customers of some of its other clients in addition to Barclays, a spokeswoman for Firstsource said Friday.

Firstsource is also allowed to hire more staff, and the company said it plans to expand its operations, the spokeswoman said. Firstsource already employs about 2,500 people in the U.S.

A number of Indian outsourcers, including Tata Consultancy Services and HCL Technologies, have done similar deals with clients in the U.S. and U.K.

The deals give Indian companies access to new clients who don't necessarily want to trim their domestic staff but would rather turn them over to outside management.