New Growth Opportunities for India GCCs in Financial Institutions | Insights

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Makoto Noda

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Ryoya Sato

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Yuichiro Takayama

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1. From a "Cost Center" to a "Strategic Hub" ～The Transformation of India GCCs

When many financial institutions hear the term "India GCC (Global Capability Center)," what still comes to mind is offshore development or Business Process Outsourcing, in other words, outsourced operations aimed at reducing costs. However, that perception is rapidly becoming outdated.
Today, there are approximately 1,800 GCCs in India, representing the majority of GCCs worldwide. Furthermore, some forecasts suggest that by 2030, the number will reach 2,550 locations and the market size will grow to USD 110 billion^*1. In cities such as Bangalore, Hyderabad, Pune, and Chennai, core functions for development, research and development, and artificial intelligence utilization for global enterprises are concentrated. India is no longer merely a "source of low-cost talent" but is transforming into a strategic hub for executing corporate transformation.
What, then, does a GCC mean for financial institutions? The key point is to redefine GCCs not as "outsourcing providers" but as "operational forces for value creation." This article reexamines the evolution of India GCCs through advanced case studies from Europe, the United States, and Asia, and presents practical perspectives for financial institutions seeking to transform GCCs into a source of their own transformation capabilities.

*1 JETRO Regional and Analysis Report: "The Appeal of Establishing a Global Capability Center (GCC) in India," Japan External Trade Organization

2. The Evolution of GCCs ～From Execution Units to Management Infrastructure

Under conventional Business Process Outsourcing and offshore development models, the relationship was often one-directional: headquarters defined requirements, and the India side executed them. In contrast, the areas covered by GCCs include business transformation, engineering, research and development, digital strategy, and artificial intelligence utilization, all of which are directly tied to management agendas. In other words, GCCs do not merely carry out assigned tasks. They propose ideas such as, "Could applying artificial intelligence to this process significantly transform operations?" and work together from concept through implementation.
Similar trends are emerging in the financial industry. Particularly among major financial institutions in Europe and the United States, the role of India GCCs has already changed significantly. GCCs are being positioned not merely as offshore centers but as core hubs responsible for artificial intelligence, data analytics, software development, and even activities related to control functions such as regulatory compliance and risk management.
Most notably, GCCs are no longer limited to being "execution units"; they are beginning to take responsibility and ownership of the work itself. For example, at Citi, the center of implementation supporting the company-wide deployment of generative artificial intelligence is located in its India GCC, which functions as the core of global operations supporting activities in more than 80 countries^*2. Similarly, at Deutsche Bank, its India operations, which employ tens of thousands of personnel, are advancing artificial intelligence utilization and talent development in an integrated manner, while also transferring ownership of business operations to the GCC side^*3.
What these examples have in common is that the GCC is not a place that carries out work based on instructions from headquarters. Instead, it functions as "another management foundation" that forms part of global operations. In other words, GCCs are evolving from centers established to reduce costs into core hubs that implement artificial intelligence, enhance business operations, and simultaneously improve productivity and governance across global operations.

*2 Citi India: Driving Innovation in Global Banking Operations, ETGCC

*3 Deutsche Bank's GCC Incubator Fuels AI Transformation in India, ETEnterpriseAI
　 How Deutsche Bank's India GCC Became Mission Control - The Financial Express

3. The Reality of GCC Utilization Through Governance and Operations

One useful framework for understanding the recent evolution of GCCs in financial institutions is the "Three Lines Model" organized from a governance perspective.
Under this model:

First Line: Business execution functions
Second Line: Risk management and compliance
Third Line: Internal audit

These roles are separated, and control is maintained through mutual checks and balances.
Traditionally, offshore centers were generally limited to "task execution" as part of the First Line. However, advanced GCCs today are beginning to assume more multilayered roles within this framework.
For example, at a certain Western financial institution, the India GCC is involved not only in business execution but also in Second Line functions related to risk management and compliance, as well as control domains such as data governance and model management. As the use of artificial intelligence expands and the importance of model risk management and accountability increases, GCCs are becoming entities that support both implementation and governance.
This means that GCCs are evolving beyond being simple tools for efficiency and are becoming foundations that simultaneously achieve both "business sophistication" and "stronger governance."

Japanese financial institutions are also beginning to utilize India GCCs. Company A's India GCC is responsible for trade document verification, credit rating activities, and robotic process automation development and maintenance, supporting not only the Asia-Pacific region but also locations worldwide, including New York and London. It is also working to improve the efficiency of trade administration through artificial intelligence optical character recognition, especially for processes involving diverse formats that tend to rely on person-dependent operations.

A noteworthy aspect of Company A's initiative is that it does not limit the GCC to being a "business process aggregation center." The company's India GCC has achieved more than 240 robotic process automation development and maintenance projects, resulting in over 6,000 hours of labor savings. More than 200 projects are currently underway, serving clients across 15 countries. The company has also outlined plans to expand its workforce to approximately 1,000 employees in the future, positioning its India operation as a core driver of productivity improvement across its global network.

Among Singapore-based financial institutions, Company B's India GCC is particularly instructive. For Company B, the India GCC has been its first and largest offshore technology center outside Singapore and is now positioned as a "strategic engineering organization" employing more than 4,000 technology professionals. The center is responsible for artificial intelligence, data, cloud, cybersecurity, Site Reliability Engineering, payments, core banking, wealth management, and banking technology for institutional investors. It is not merely an information technology development and maintenance center but a core hub supporting Company B's digital transformation. In recent years, it has also taken on the role of driving the implementation of next-generation technologies, including generative artificial intelligence, Agentic AI, and blockchain.

At the same time, Japanese financial institutions face challenges when utilizing GCCs. Japanese financial institutions have maintained high quality through detailed, operations-driven process design. While this strength should be preserved, the full execution capability of local teams cannot be realized simply by expecting the India side to adopt the headquarters' expectations and ways of working unchanged.

4. Practical Approaches for Global Collaboration and Success

The utilization of GCCs is not an initiative that can be completed solely between headquarters and the India operation.

In practice, companies that have successfully expanded GCCs and achieved results do not plan transfers and consolidation of operations solely between headquarters and the India GCC. Instead, they operate based on collaboration among multiple locations, including regional headquarters and offices across Europe, the United States, and Asia.
In such a structure, it is important not to force all locations to conform unilaterally to the methods of a specific site. Rather, consolidation should proceed while taking into account each region's operational characteristics, regulations, and customer requirements. It is necessary to design business processes that reflect the realities of each global location, rather than simply applying headquarters' quality standards and management methods or pursuing only the efficiency of the India side.
As a result, operations can be structured to balance efficiency by standardizing common elements while preserving the distinctive characteristics of each region's operations. In other words, GCCs serve not merely as consolidation centers but as "coordination mechanisms" for optimizing global business operations.
The form that a GCC takes under this approach differs from one financial institution to another. Each institution's unique GCC model is shaped through accumulated decisions regarding which operations should be standardized, to what extent, and which regional characteristics should be retained.

At the same time, there is no need to pursue large-scale transformation from the outset. It is more practical to begin with areas where operations are relatively standardized and outcomes are easy to measure. For financial institutions, an effective approach is to start with areas such as administrative operations, system maintenance and operations, and data management, and then gradually expand the scope of utilization. Throughout this process, efficiency improvements through robotic process automation and artificial intelligence optical character recognition, data analytics support, and artificial intelligence utilization can be combined to evolve from operational improvement to business transformation. What matters is not making operational transfer the objective itself, but steadily building achievements and trust while evolving the GCC into a partner for creating new value.

In the era of artificial intelligence, the value of GCCs will increase even further. Talent capable of understanding artificial intelligence and implementing it in business operations is in intense demand worldwide. Securing and developing the required talent, and using it to drive transformation, solely within an organization takes time. For this reason, GCCs that connect organizations with India's highly skilled information technology and artificial intelligence talent should be viewed not as "external development centers" but as "mechanisms for expanding an organization's transformation capabilities."

The new growth opportunity for India GCCs lies not in extending cost-reduction efforts but in their potential as "co-creation hubs" where headquarters, regional locations, and India GCCs work together to create value. How this potential is realized is the question now facing financial institutions.

5. ABeam's Perspective ～Helping Financial Institutions Leverage GCCs

The key to leveraging India GCCs for financial institutions lies not in "transferring" operations, but in "designing" an operating model in which headquarters, regional locations, and GCCs share responsibilities to create value. Many obstacles arise not from technology capabilities or costs, but from tacit knowledge embedded in business processes and misaligned expectations between locations. If quality standards developed by frontline operations are transferred without being explicitly documented, the GCC loses the basis for decision-making, while headquarters may perceive that "quality has declined." Designing mechanisms to bridge this gap is the first major hurdle.

ABeam Consulting has accumulated expertise in both global business transformation and execution support across locations throughout Asia. In GCC utilization, we provide support across three dimensions. the first is the visualization and standardization of current operations. We identify person-dependent processes and define the scope and level of standardization for transferring activities to GCCs. The second is the design of collaborative operating models. Following the Three Lines Model framework, we clarify the roles and governance scope assigned to the GCC while establishing responsibility allocation and reporting lines with headquarters and regional locations. The third is support for artificial intelligence implementation and adoption. We begin with areas where results are easy to measure, such as robotic process automation and artificial intelligence optical character recognition, and then gradually expand toward artificial intelligence utilization and business transformation while making outcomes visible.
Equally important is the design of cross-location talent allocation and change management. Elevating a GCC from an execution unit to a management foundation requires a process of entrusting ownership of operations to local teams. To achieve this, organizations need a common operational language and evaluation criteria, as well as mechanisms that enable headquarters to delegate responsibility. We support these organizational and talent transitions in an integrated manner alongside business process design.

For financial institutions, the key question is not "Should we establish a GCC?" but rather "Which operations and functions should we co-create with a GCC to strengthen our competitiveness?" Utilization driven solely by cost reduction will not generate sufficient results. However, when linked to management challenges such as talent acquisition, artificial intelligence implementation, and business sophistication, GCCs can become important foundations supporting corporate transformation.

India GCCs are not merely an extension of cost-reduction initiatives; they are mechanisms for expanding an organization's transformation capabilities. We provide end-to-end support, from business design at the conceptual stage to establishing operating structures with regional teams and ensuring the successful adoption of artificial intelligence implementation.

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