Despite the conditions laid down by the new US president Obama to eliminate all tax benefits for companies that outsource work to other countries, the second-biggest bank of the US, JP Morgan Chase, has announced that it will increase ITS outsourcing to India by 25% this year to nearly $400 million.

The company will also manage the integration of the acquired companies from India to bring down the cost of integrating different information technology (IT) systems according to a report in the Economic Times.

Currently, JP Morgan outsources $250-300 million worth of IT and back-office projects every year to Cognizant, TCS and Accenture, apart from to its own captive centre in Mumbai.

“JP Morgan CIO Guy Chiarello said last week that he will increase outsourcing to India, and will drive several integration projects from there,” a New York-based expert, familiar with JP Morgan’s outsourcing plans, said on conditions of anonymity.

The bank, which cancelled its $5-billion outsourcing contract with IBM in 2004 — following the merger with Bank One — had brought back around 4,000 IT staff in-house after the new CIO Austin Adams had proposed a “do-it-yourself” strategy for the merged entity.