UBS to create more senior leadership roles at India tech centres

At present, about 36% of the digital and information group workforce is based out of India, driving a large part of technology development for the bank.

“We will be moving roles and looking to retain, promote and hire 7-10 managing directors in the next year or two, making sure that India is one of our core hubs,” Mike Dargan, chief digital and information officer, UBS Group AG, told ET.

To signal this shift, it will no longer refer to its offices in Pune, Hyderabad and Mumbai as ‘business solution centres’.

“Technology is a key strategic pillar for the bank, and it is very important that we have the right roles here with the right seniority,” Dargan said.

UBS has moved about 33% of its workload to the Cloud and will increase this significantly going forward. A large part of this work, Dargan said, would be driven from India. UBS will also focus on areas including Agile and engineering excellence.

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In the last few years, most global banks that run capability centres in India have increased the number of leadership roles in the country. Over the last two years, a bigger portion of research and innovation around the core technology is being done out of India, given the availability of high-skill talent and openness to having more work being done remotely.

In future, Dargan said that Cloud and Artificial Intelligence would be an important area of focus for UBS in India.

He said that the challenges in the global talent marketplace had not impacted its ability to find the right kind of people.

Diversity was an important area for the bank, with 30% of its workforce in India now comprising women, the highest for UBS worldwide. UBS is also doubling down on hiring veterans in India, he said.

Having established its presence here, UBS is also putting in place a plan to engage more deeply with the startup ecosystem in the country. “We have a group called UBS Next, which is an investment venture fund. I think the amount of work that can be done on the fintech side here is really important,” he added.