Pune is the new back office destination for foreign banks. After Citibank and Barclays opened their offices in the city over the past three years, Deutsche Bank has followed suit.

The Germany-based bank has signed a deal with Panchshil Realty for lease of a plush 2.5-lakh-square-feet office space at Pune’s Airport Road at ₹55 a square-feet, which is about a 60-70 per cent higher than the normal market rate of ₹30-35, according to industry sources.

Set to handle about 2,000 employees now, the office space, according to the contract, is scalable to 3.5 lakh square feet over a year to house about 3,500 employees (about 35 per cent of Deutsche’s total head count). The inauguration of the office took place on March 11 in the presence of Deutsche Bank’s bigwigs, including Ravneet Gill, India CEO, and Gunit Chadha, Head of Asia-Pacific operations. Set to function as the bank’s fourth back office in India after Mumbai, Bangalore and Jaipur, the Pune office will house fresh hires as well as employees from its Mumbai office for carrying out functions related to transactions processing, reconciliation, financial intermediation and other back office settlements.

Significantly, after this deal, four foreign banks — HSBC, Citibank, Deutsche Bank and Barclays — jointly have sewn up deals for leasing about 1.5 million square feet of office space in Pune for ₹150 crore annually from Panchshil Realty alone, said an industry source.

HSBC set up a base in Pune nearly a decade ago followed by Citibank, Barclays and Credit Suisse. “Now Pune is fast emerging as a preferred office destination given the clear cost advantage in terms of 30-40 per cent lower rentals and talent costs compared to Mumbai, apart from better infrastructure and close proximity to Mumbai,” said Ramesh Nair, Chief Operating Officer, Jones Lang Lasalle.

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