National Australia Bank is preparing to add more than 1000 roles across its offices in Vietnam and India, after doubling headcount in those markets over the past three years.
Rival banks Commonwealth Bank and ANZ have followed a similar path, building large teams in Asian hubs focused on software and IT work.
Bank executives argue that Asia offers a deeper pool of engineers than Australia, especially for technology-heavy projects. Critics point out that these expansions come as local jobs are being cut.
NAB currently employs about 5000 people in the Indian cities of Gurugram and Bengaluru, alongside roughly 2000 staff in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City in Vietnam.
The bank brands these sites as "innovation centres", and says they are not just back-office hubs but core to its technology and digital programmes.
Roles in these centres typically span software engineering, systems support and other specialist IT functions.
Similar offshore footprints at Commonwealth Bank and ANZ are also concentrated in these high-skill technology areas.
Union representatives highlight the tension between banks' claims of domestic skills shortages and the reality of Australian tech and engineering roles being shed.
The Finance Sector Union argues that the very jobs being offshored are those targeted in ongoing local redundancies across the finance sector.
Industry observers say the scale of NAB's offshore build-out shows how central these Asian centres have become to big-bank technology strategies.
