Bank internet move leads to downsizing

The leveraging of internet technology to provide a single-site help desk at Standard Chartered Bank will force people out, according to the manager of the project, Mitzi Pearce.

The bank has customers in New York, equipment in London and export support personnel in Singapore. It uses a customised version of Help Desk Manager (HDM), from customer service vendor Help Desk Systems, in six or seven sites.

Now it wants to migrate to an internet-capable version of HDM with a single database and remote access. This will lead to fewer local support personnel, saving the bank tens of thousands of pounds a year.

"Data conversion with the Sybase database will be easy. Handling the job cuts that will come - the human side - is difficult," said Pearce, who did not say how many would lose their jobs.