JP Morgan bullish on BPO prospects in RP
Posted December 04, 2008The financial industry may be facing its greatest challenge but an executive of the local office of JP Morgan Chase & Co., a global financial institution, said despite current conditions, their growth outlook in the country is expected to remain robust.
“It think [the financial meltdown] is a concern, but it hasn’t affected our growth. There are other parts of the world where are struggling, but in the Philippines, we are strong.” said Barry E. Marshall, vice president and senior country operations officer of JP Morgan’s Philippine office.
He spoke to the BusinessMirror during the BPO (business process outsourcing) Summit Philippines on Tuesday. He noted that it is because of this optimistic outlook that they are still on track in achieving their growth targets for 2009, which involves doubling the capacity of their BPO operations in the country.
According to Marshall, this will increase JP Morgan’s capacity to over 7,000 seats by 2009, and will involve a mix of their call center and financial services operations among other internal backdoor processes.
“We’re confident in the Philippines’ capability to deliver strategic output for us,” he said as he cited the country’s strengths in JP Morgan’s local operations owing to the high level of English proficiency and ready pool of finance and accounting personnel.
The bank executive added that their expansion plans have already been taken into account by the parent company’s recent acquisition of troubled Washington Mutual Bank, then the largest savings and loan in the US, in late September. This gives JP Morgan access to that bank’s strong deposit base and control of an additional 2,200 branches.
JP Morgan is a leading global financial services firm with assets of $2.3 trillion and has operations in over 60 countries that include Asian offices in Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam, Malaysia and Indonesia.
Source: BusinessMirror.com.ph, December 3, 2008
by Miguel R. Camus
