A FRESH row over jobs being outsourced to India has developed after unions discovered plans by the Abbey bank to launch a pilot programme in Bangalore.

Amicus said office jobs such as transaction-processing, accounting and payroll services were involved.

The union said the company, which recently rebranded itself after dropping its Abbey National name, risked damaging its image.

Research for Amicus showed that UK customers believed British firms did a good job, had high levels of training and knowledge and kept personal data safe.

People felt Indian companies failed on all three counts, according to the union.

Roger Lyons, joint general secretary of Amicus, said British firms should listen to their customers' concerns or risk causing irreparable damage to their brands.

He said: "Outsourcing is a fact of global life, but it must not be carried out at the expense of any one national economy over another.

"The same thing that happened to manufacturing could happen in the service sector unless the Government, employers and unions take immediate action to properly manage technological change."

Previous reports have suggested that two million jobs will be outsourced from Western economies to India by 2008 because of labour cost-savings of up to 40 per cent.

Amicus said it believed 200,000 UK jobs were at risk in call centres, computer support and legal services.