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HSBC’s global call centre was officially inaugurated yesterday by the Prime Minister, Dr Lawrence Gonzi, together with HSBC chief operating officer David Budd, at the centre which is now taking up to 8,400 calls a day.
The call centre is handling inbound calls from HSBC’s UK customers, to compliment its other global centres in Asia and the UK.
The transformation of the disused former supermarket building into a fully-fledged and fully-operational call centre in a span of 16 weeks came with some 35km of cable, 1,500 square metres of soffit tiles, 1,800 square metres of new raised flooring, Lm800,000 in refurbishment costs and a total initial investment of Lm3 million – Lm600,000 were invested in IT equipment alone.
The call centre has been fully operational since October 2006 where some 3,200 applications were received by HSBC to fill 340 vacancies by the end of December. The bank has already employed 260 new employees who are being taken through an intense training programme on a phased basis before taking live calls.
Currently, the total number of calls received per hour, including Saturday and Sunday averages 330 and is increasing as more staff start taking live calls. The daily rate of calls is now up to 8,400. Since the Call Centre’s first day of operation, there has been an escalation of weekly calls from 5,558 to 32,253.
COO David Budd said: “Malta is a European country with a well established legal, regulatory and commercial infrastructure and has sufficiently appropriate investment incentives offered by the government. Apart from being well educated and highly skilled, the Maltese workforce has excellent English language skills, close cultural affinity with the UK and Europe and a good work ethic. It also has distinct cost advantages compared to Europe but with the full benefits of forming part of the European Union. To date this has been a very positive experience for HSBC in comparable global terms of direct inward investment and customer experience, efficiency and cost effectiveness.” |
