The stereotype of jobs outsourced to India is that of the call-center operatives with their fake American accents, Bill or Joe living in Uttar Pradesh or Calcutta.

But a large number of well-paid City of London jobs could be lost to India over the next five years, according to a new study which is being widely reported in the Indian IT media.

The report from Troika, a British financial services consultancy, predicts that within five years, 100,000 such jobs will be lost to low-cost countries, including 15,000 well-paid ones in the City of London.

In Britain, the expression the City is the equivalent of the American expression Wall Street, shorthand for the City of London, the square mile around the Bank of England which is bulging with banks, the London Stock Exchange and other financial institutions.

The displacement of between 10,000 and 15,000 financial services jobs by the end of the decade would add to the flood of low-skill call center and back office administration jobs that have already been shifted abroad.

Indian companies that have been gearing up to take on more highly, skilled, analytical work want to tap the $150 billion market for research and analysis.

Managing Director of Troika, Andrew Stewart said there is a growing shift to look at off-shoring more complex and high paid roles-finance, research, human resources, marketing, actuarial and underwriting.

Or as The Scotsman put it, Up to 15,000 well-paid City jobs could disappear to India by 2010 as companies show a rising willingness to outsource complex tasks to low-cost economies.

According to The Telegraph, a well-informed source in the financial services sector of a major Indian bank, who declined to be named (we are not allowed to talk to the media) said: The staff in India, who could be chartered accountants or engineers or physics graduates with some financial background, will have to be paid good salaries they wont come cheap but for firms in London it will still be cheaper than employing equivalent staff in Britain.

It seems that some Indian accountancy firms have already sent their executives to London to tout for business. I know of a couple who have come to London and have been in touch with accountancy firms and solicitors firms, the source revealed to The Telegraph.

The work being shifted includes working out payments for pension funds, which require constant updating so that there is not a shortfall now that people are expecting to live a lot longer. The skills required to do the calculations and financial modeling are already there in India, and also software models are available, the source added.

According to a report today in The Times, over the past few years Indian companies have been gearing up to take on more profitable, highly skilled, analytical work, including financial modeling and actuarial services to tap into the 80 billion ($120 billion) market for research and analysis.

The report also says ICICI OneSource, the outsourcing unit of one of Indias largest financial services groups, last year signaled its interest in building a presence in the lucrative research outsourcing market with the purchase of a majority stake in Pipal Research, a US-based company that operates in India.

The Scotsman reports that the outsourcers deny they are taking away jobs at the top end of the market. They argue that outsourcing releases UK-based workers to generate more cash by spending extra time with clients.

The Corporation of London has also refuted allegations that moves to take jobs offshore poses a threat to the City.

International Financial Services, London said this month that the market for financial services work carried out offshore would be worth some 77 billion ($110 billion) in 2005. The financial services industry body said that this would represent a 38 billion ($55 billion) saving on the cost of those services in the UK.

In India, the equivalent salary for a $100,000 (53,700) Wall Street analyst would be about 16,100, or $24,000.

David Sims is contributing editor and CRM Alert columnist for TMCnet.

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