HIGHSTREET bank Abbey yesterday rubbished reports that it plans to close its Indian call centre and bring some of the 1,000 jobs it originally offshored back to Britain.

A national newspaper claimed that Abbey intends to shut down its Bangalore call centre next year and transfer some of the jobs to Teesside following customer complaints.

However, a spokesperson for the bank said: "There are no current plans to move or close the call centre. I don't know where the story came from."

According to the newspaper report Abbey wants to transfer work back to its call centres in the UK, including its site in Thornaby, near Stockton, which employs around 700 staff, as well as in Glasgow and Milton Keynes.