Leading bank Barclays is expected to become the latest major company to move jobs to India by shifting its administrative functions.

The bank has already moved 550 processing jobs to India, affecting 250 posts at London. However, only 40 British staff left Barclays as a result of the switch. The rest were redeployed elsewhere in the bank.

Barclays said it was talking to the banking union Unifi about offshore outsourcing but denied reports that it has firm plans to move up to 5,000 of its 9,500 call-centre jobs to India.

Its spokesman George Hulbert said,” We have no particular targets for offshore outsourcing. We have no fixed plans to ‘offshore’ call centres. As a dynamic business operating in an intensely competitive environment in over 60 countries, we keep the way we run our business under regular review.” A range of options is available to improve efficiency - in-house changes, joint ventures, outsourcing in the UK and outsourcing offshore. We use them all, he said.

However, it is believed that up to 1,200 posts may be lost under plans to move its IT development operation to consultancy Accenture, which could move many jobs to India.

The latest proposals will add to the concern of unions. A report by Deloitte Consulting claims that two million financial sector posts could move from Western countries to the developing world in the next five years.

At least 29 companies have moved 50,000 jobs serving UK customers to India.