In a statement the bank says it will move the finance processing jobs to Accenture's delivery centre in Bangalore by April 2007.

The roles to be outsourced involve validating and converting data into reports, data entry and procurement administration. NAB insists that the plans do not involve customer-contact roles and all customer data will remain stored in Australia.

Commenting on the move, Ewen Stafford, CFO, NAB Australia, says: "We established a pilot programme involving 24 accounts payable roles with Accenture 10 months ago which has seen an increase in productivity, reduction in error rates and some great process improvements."

The bank says it expects many of the impacted employees to be redeployed to other roles within the organisation.

NAB said last month that it was looking to move around 100 credit card processing jobs to an offshore centre - thought to be in India - in a bid to cut costs. The bank has invited global suppliers to submit tenders for the outsourcing project.