US Banks to Rely on Indian Centers as Trump Enforces Visa Fees
Wall Street banks are poised to depend increasingly on their Indian business support centers after President Donald Trump’s unexpected decision to implement $100,000 charges on new applications for the popular H-1B visa program.
US financial institutions such as Citigroup Inc., JPMorgan Chase & Co., and Goldman Sachs Group Inc. are among the largest employers of India's so-called global capability centers, which manage functions ranging from trading support and risk management to technological assistance.
Manned by software engineers, quants, and accounting experts, the centers provide affordable services while enabling companies to access skilled professionals that are not easily found in their local markets.
While Trump aims to safeguard American jobs by limiting immigration, analysts indicated that the new regulations could encourage banks to expand their operations in Indian tech cities like Mumbai, Bengaluru, and Hyderabad, which currently provide jobs for over 1.9 million individuals.
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"Without additional limits on offshoring, foreign banks will increasingly rely on their Indian capability centers," stated Umesh Chhazzed, founder of recruitment agency Anlage Infotech, who has collaborated with US lenders for over 20 years.
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The Indian and US tech industries extensively utilize the H-1B visa program to recruit talented employees from overseas, with finance firms and consulting companies also being significant users. Workers born in India represented 72.3 percent of all H-1B recipients in the US fiscal year ending September 2023, encompassing both initial and ongoing employment.
According to data from EY, the GCCs have developed into a market worth $64 billion, experiencing an annual growth rate of approximately 9.8 percent from 2019 to 2024.
The count of centers is expected to reach up to 2,500 by 2030, increasing from the current 1,700, with the market valuation anticipated to reach $110 billion, according to the consulting firm.
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US banks rank among the largest employers in the industry, enabling them to possibly relocate jobs to India to evade the new visa restrictions. Citigroup employs around 33,000 people in the nation, Bank of America Corp. has over 27,000, and JPMorgan has 55,000 workers.