Mumbai: The Australian Finance Sector Union (FSU), a frontline organisation of bank employees, has urged shareholders of St George Bank to reject sending jobs to India.

Paul Schroder, national secretary of the union, said as part of its efforts against offshoring jobs overseas union members would ask board members to commit to keeping jobs in Australia.

St George Bank had, earlier this year, moved over 76 jobs from Sydney and Adelaide to Bangalore.

Offshoring with sensitive account information and customer contact details also was undermining St George's reputation, a newspaper report quoted him as saying.

"St George cannot continue to satisfy shareholders with the argument that offshoring is necessary to give the bank a competitive advantage when they base their reputation around caring for people," Schroeder said adding "their actions continue to fly in the face of concerns from workers, customers and shareholders," he added.

The bank also faced shareholder criticism over its practice of offering no-deposit and low-documentation loans, which some perceived as too risky.

St George, however, moved to arrest shareholder concerns about moving jobs offshore and defended its policy of offering home loans to people with no money for a deposit.

Chairman John Thame said that any of St George's permanent full-time or part-time employees affected by offshoring was guaranteed a position with similar conditions within the group.

The bank's chief executive Gail Kelly said she was confident of Australia's fifth-largest bank achieving its forecast for 10 per cent earnings per share growth in 2007 and 2008.

Kelly said St George had employed 1,000 people in the past five years and would continue to employ Australians in skilled positions.