Why BFSI GCCs employ a third of talent despite forming just 10% of centres

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India’s financial services global capability centres (GCCs) have become some of the largest employers in the country’s fast-growing captive centre ecosystem. Despite accounting for less than 10 percent of the total GCC count in India, BFSI (banking, financial services and insurance) GCCs employ nearly one-third of the 17 lakh GCC workforce in the country.

A major reason for this disproportionate share lies in the nature of the business.

“In financial services, people are essentially the product. Unlike manufacturing or consumer goods, these firms don't have physical products; they provide services that require large operational and technology teams,” Manoj Marwah, Financial Services GCC Consulting Leader at EY India, told Moneycontrol.

US banking giants employ thousands in their GCCs, such as JP Morgan Chase, which has approximately 50,000 people working in its Indian GCCs.

Historically, BFSI firms were also among the first movers to set up global in-house centres in India. American Express established its GCC in 1993, followed by GE Capital and others. Subsequent black swan events are the 2008 global financial crisis and COVID-19, which pushed banks to accelerate offshoring, where they sought cost advantages.

Currently, many global banks have 60-70 percent of their technology and operations teams based in India. In some cases, up to a third of their global headcount is concentrated here. “India has become the only geography where banks have both front-to-back technology and operations under one roof at scale,” Marwah added further.

Moreover, the BFSI sector leads in adopting futuristic technologies.

“The sector was the first to adopt automation, data analytics, and now agentic AI. There are banks in the US today that operate fully online without a single branch. Even in India, many stock trading companies have no physical presence at all,” said Pyush Jain, a GCC specialist who runs a captive centre for a large third-party vendor.

According to Quess Corp’s latest “IT Staffing Quarterly Digital Skills Report,” BFSI companies are increasingly leveraging DevOps practices to modernise their digital banking platforms. Continuous Integration/Continuous Deployment (CI/CD), Infrastructure as Code (IaC), and containerisation are helping banks roll out features faster, strengthen security, and reduce operational risk.

Also, read: BFSI global capability centres bullish on Gen AI despite regulatory hurdles

However, BFSI firms continue to be conservative when it comes to customer-facing AI deployments. Most banks are focusing on internal “denominator” use cases, i.e., productivity improvements, automation, and cost savings, before extending AI to direct customer interactions.

Call centre copilots and real-time support bots are being piloted, but always with a human in the loop to navigate through risks around trust and compliance.

Beyond technology, the leadership structure of BFSI GCCs is also evolving rapidly.

In the last five years, the number of global roles based in India has grown five to ten times. Returning NRI leaders and expats are helping bridge cultural gaps and improve collaboration with headquarters.

As BFSI GCCs continue to transform from traditional cost centres to strategic innovation hubs, their share of the workforce, already disproportionately large, is expected to grow even further.

Also, read: India commands 60% of scaled banking workforce in GCCs