It is predicted that the emerging No. 1 US bank, JPMorgan Chase and Co., would soon aggressively offshore more back- office jobs to the Philippines. “We do not see any significant fallout from the recent collapse of a number of  US banks, or their absorption by larger rivals,” said Catanduanes Rep. Joseph Santiago, chairman of the House information and communications technology committee.

“When American firms slash costs due to mergers or an economic slowdown, the first to go tend to be high-paying US-based jobs. They hardly bother to reexamine toward scaling down their low-cost outsourcing activities here, at least not on the basis of cost,” he said.

US financial institutions, along with telecommunication, Internet, direct broadcast and cable-TV providers, are among the biggest clients of Philippine BPO firms. One of them is 119-year-old Washington Mutual Inc. (WaMu), the erstwhile largest American thrift and savings closed by the US government, and its banking assets sold at a fire-sale price to JPMorgan.

WaMu has been a key client of PeopleSupport Inc., which runs three contact centers that employ around 8,000 college-educated, fluent English-speaking Filipinos. “Among US banks, JPMorgan is the most comfortable with the Philippines. The bank has been here for 47 years. It has become totally acclimatized to our political and economic conditions,” Santiago said. (more…)