Mphasis plunges over 6 pc on BSE

B D Narayankar & Anmol Khurana

Press Trust of India

New Delhi, July 12: IT firm Mphasis plunged by over 6 per cent on the BSE to an intra-day low of Rs 426 after one of its UK-based clients, Santander, started the process of moving the operations of all of its Indian call centres back to its home country due to customer dissatisfaction.
Shares of Mphasis fell by 6.44 per cent to an intra-day low of Rs 426 on the Bombay Stock Exchange.
Santander UK is moving its retail-banking-related call centre services, which were earlier being outsourced to MphasiS, to the UK from India following customer complaints.
"The move is part of Santander''s programme to further improve the service it offers and follows feedback from customers who say dealing with an offshore call centre is a frustration that can lead to dissatisfaction," the company said in a statement.
On the National Stock Exchange, the stock plunged 6.59 per cent to an intra-day low of Rs 425.55.
"The company''s decision to move back jobs comes at a time when Indian software companies are fending off an anti-outsourcing backlash from developed markets like the US and Europe. UK-based companies are the second largest contributors to revenue for Indian IT firms, after those in the US," a stock market expert said.
MphasiS confirmed that Santander was its customer, but declined to comment further.
"All calls handled by these centres will now be dealt with by staff based in Glasgow, Leicester and Liverpool," the UK-based firm added.
Santander has hired an additional 500 UK staff to handle the estimated 1.5 million calls each month. The new staff are fully trained and are now available to take calls. In total, Santander''s UK call centres employ 2,500 staff.
Shares of MphasiS made a marginal recovery later in the day and were trading at Rs 433.60 apiece at 1413 hours on the BSE, down 4.78 per cent.
Santander UK is a full-service retail and commercial bank providing services to 25 million customers in more than 1,400 branches and around 4,200 cash machines. It is a wholly owned subsidiary of Banco Santander.

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