UBS has a plan to move about 2,500 jobs to low-cost locations such as Poland, India, China, and Nashville, Tennessee, over the next year.
Yes, Nashville.
The bank announced fourth-quarter results on Tuesday, and in an accompanying presentation it set out examples of cost cuts in the corporate center, which houses things like human resources and IT.
As the chart below shows, the bank has created 500 jobs in Nashville since the end of 2014, and plans to add another 100.
Admittedly, that isn't a huge number. The Americas business at UBS made 2.8 billion Swiss francs in revenue in the fourth-quarter 2015. Still, it is striking that 27% of staff in the corporate center now work in offshore or "nearshore" locations, up nine points in two years.
In Poland, the bank expects to add another 1,300 staff, while it expects to have 1,800 staff in Pune, India, by the end of 2016. It also expects to add 400 more staff in Shanghai.
"In addition to lower future-personnel expenses, this is allowing us to realize efficiency in high-cost real estate," Kirt Gardner, the group chief financial officer, said on a conference call.
UBS isn't the only bank heading down this road. A number of banks believe that you don't need to house back-office staff in high-end New York City or London real estate. They can do the same job — and probably have a better quality of life — out in Nashville.
Morgan Stanley CEO James Gorman said on that bank's fourth-quarter earnings call that staff would be moved to lower-cost locations.
"Too many employees based in high-cost centers are doing work that can sensibly be done in lower-cost centers," he said. "Now is the time to tackle head-on our infrastructure costs."
Goldman Sachs has moved thousands of jobs to places such as Salt Lake City, while Deutsche Bank has a big office in Jacksonville, Florida.
Here's the key bit from UBS presentation:
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