BANGALORE, June 24: Indian call centres moved to tighten security on Friday as London police investigated a report workers illegally sold data on British bank customers. Investors said security concerns could cause a short-term slowdown for outsourcing firms, which employ 350,000 workers.

“It does affect sentiments,” said Chetan Shah, a fund manager at Fortis Securities. “The priority will be to beef up security.”

Shares in leading outsourcing firms, including MphasiS BFL, hit by a scandal in April, Hinduja TMT and Wipro, fell even as the broader market hit a high.

Industry officials say workers are frisked and banned from bringing in mobile phones, pens and paper, cameras and even music players to prevent them sneaking out valuable information.

They also have background checks, sign non-disclosure agreements and attend courses on customer secrecy.

But the main industry body admits there are loopholes in a five-year-old IT law that must be plugged.

“I don’t think anywhere in the world you can prevent 100 per cent of people from committing crimes,” said Prakash Gurbaxani, chief executive of TranWorks, which employs 3,500. “I would say Indian law is comparable to the best in the world. Maybe the enforcement needs to be stepped up.”

Britain’s The Sun said one of its reporters had bought bank details of 1,000 British customers for three pounds ($5.50) each.

But Infinity eSearch, the firm at the centre of the allegation, said it had no such data and no British clients.

“We’re a Web marketing company that optimises Web sites on search engines,” managing director Rahul Dutt told reporters. “We do not have any classified information on any banks.”

Helped by cheap telecoms and English speakers employed at a fifth of Western wages, India’s $5.2 billion back-office exports are expected to jump 40 percent in the year to March, 2006.

The National Association of Software and Service Companies is already planning an industry-wide employee registry.

India’s call centres were first hit in April by a $400,000 online credit card fraud involving workers at MphasiS, who police said enticed Citibank customers to part with details.

In London, Barclays, one of the banks whose data was said to be leaked, said the information did not come from its own operation, but probably from a third party that requires customers to provide bank details in sales transactions.

Citibank, ABN Amro, Standard Chartered and HSBC are among financial giants that employ workers in India to serve global customers. HSBC was among those whose data was said to be stolen in the Sun’s sting.

HSBC spokeswoman Malini Thadani said the group employed 3,600 in three Indian cities, but none in Delhi.

“We haven’t got any third parties involved,” she said. —Reuters