EXL Service Holdings, the Nasdaq-listed back-office company, is planning to set up a 500-seater delivery centre in Colombia later this year.

The centre will serve as a near shore destination for American clients who need Spanish language support, said Rohit Kapoor, Chief Executive Officer.

“Columbia has become attractive for Spanish language capabilities as the political environment there is much stable now and the talent pool is robust. The country also gives tax sops and incentives for investing firms.” Kapoor told BusinessLine on the sidelines of the Nasscom India Leadership Forum, here on Thursday.

Insurance space

The company will use its Columbian centre to predominantly service clients in the insurance space. 

It may be recalled that last year EXL had entered into a joint venture with Carvajal Tecnologia y Servicios (CT&S) to establish a joint venture that will be based in Cali, Colombia for addressing the growing demand for Spanish language-based operations management solutions. EXL is to have 51 per cent stake in the joint venture.

Labour costs in Colombia are said to be one of the cheapest in the Latin American region. In Bogota city, labour costs for bi-lingual skills are 15-25 per cent lower than comparable employees in Monterrey (Mexico) or Buenos Aires (Argentina). Separately, Kapoor indicated that EXL may grow faster than Nasscom’s projection for fiscal 2015-16. The industry body has marginally lowered its estimates for IT and back-office services exports to 12-14 per cent for the year ending March 31, 2016, against the 13-15 per cent estimated for 2014-15.  For 2015-16, Nasscom expects domestic sales (including e-commerce) to grow 15-17 per cent.

“We believe that out growth will be faster than Nasscom estimates as there is good momentum in the pipeline. Moreover, some of the acquisitions that we made last year will also add to our numbers,” said Kapoor.

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