Bangalore: U.K. based Lloyds Bank has started replacing most of its IT workers with Indian nationals. According to bank's vendors, the bank has currently 400 employees and is planning to replace 80 percent of its workforce with IT professionals from India. These Indian recruit are expected to be from major Indian IT firms like Wipro, TCS. "We continue to outsource areas of IT work to companies based overseas. At any one time, some of the staff from these companies will be based in the UK to deliver aspects of our IT projects, which is standard industry practice," said a Lloyd's spokeswoman over e-mail to economic times.

Lloyd's spokeswoman also added that staff from overseas companies working with Lloyds in the UK varied depending on the projects and the skills required. So far Wipro and TCS have not commented on these developments.

"The costs pressures for companies in Europe and U.S. are forcing companies to lay off workers and replace them with more inexpensive labor mostly from India and China," said a UK-based consultant, who advises European banks on outsourcing strategies to economic times. Since globally economic crisis has forced companies to implement serious cost cutting measures including layoffs and salary cuts. One of the main reasons for Lloyds bank deciding to hire Indian professionals is because they cost 30 percent less than their British counterparts.