Bangalore, Nov 02: Global banking group HSBC plans to double the number of back-office staff in India in two years as it boosts operations in low-cost Asian countries. Malcolm Wagget, chief operating officer at HSBC Electronic Data Processing India, said HSBC was likely to employ up to about 4,000 staff in the country by 2004, up from the current 2,000.

He was speaking in India's technology capital of Bangalore on Thursday on the sidelines of the annual BangaloreIT.com trade show.

HSBC has back-office operations in Bangalore and Hyderabad where staff handle a variety of work including accounting and insurance claims for group subsidiaries based in the United States and Britain. Bureau Report