Barclays Capital is to spend $2 million to establish a new global technology centre in Kyiv in the Ukraine.
The bank has partnered with Eastern European systems house Epam Systems to operate the new facility, which is expected to deploy some 500 IT professionals by the end of 2012.
Barclays Capiotal says it expects to grow its technology team by 800 professionals this year, and the investment in the Ukraine will enable it to tap into a skilled pool of local talent.
Sarah Grave, head of IT Emea, Prague and Kyiv at Barclays Capital, says: "Kyiv is a key strategic centre within our technology growth plans going forward. We are exceedingly impressed with the 50 plus engineers that have already started."
The new centre adds to those already established in Singapore and Prague. It will focus on application development for in-house projects in C++, Java or C# for a wide range of business applications across the bank, ranging from electronic trading applications to risk management systems.