MANILA, Philippines — US-based business process outsourcing (BPO) firm Associated Creditor’s Exchange (ACE) Global opened a small contact center unit Thursday in Taguig City, and immediately vowed to double its employee count in the near term despite the global economic downturn.

At a news briefing, ACE Global president Joseph Berardi predicted that the company’s initial 300-seat capacity would rise to “500 to 600 seats by yearend” due to strong demand for offshore services in the United States, especially in the financial industry.

ACE Global’s main clients are the largest banks and mortgage firms in the United States. They hire ACE Global to contact delinquent borrowers to “address collection issues, minimize losses and help improve clients’ cash positions.”

The economic situation “has given us a boost,” Berardi said. “Financial companies are looking to us to handle additional volume” of delinquent accounts, he said.

A veteran of the outsourcing business, Berardi admitted that he was unsure as to whether the new administration of US President Barack Obama would push ahead with its avowed policy to discourage US firms from exporting back office jobs.

He pointed out that the policy was a political decision prompted by the high level of unemployment in the United States at present, but opined that the “pendulum will swing back” once the job market normalizes.

Berardi said it was pointless to repatriate jobs to the US mainland — where costs are at least 60 percent higher than in comparable locations overseas — while companies are being forced to reduce expenses.

As for its Philippine operations, the ACE Global chief pointed out that the company’s preliminary experience with its local contact center agents showed a higher collection rate from delinquent accounts compared to its other BPO facility in Costa Rica that also serves the US market.

“Of our top 25 agents, 20 are from the Philippines while five are from Costa Rica,” he said, expressing surprise at the trend since the local agents were trained by the Costa Rican staff.

ACE Global’s credit collection clients include one of the largest US banks, which also operates a separate back office facility in the Philippines, as well as several telecommunications firms.

Apart from banks and telecommunications firms, ACE Global has also provided services to retailers, oil companies, utility companies, hospitals, academic institutions and mortgage lenders.

ACE Global places over 2.2 million agent-attended calls and over one million virtual calls each month from all its service delivery centers operating in Phoenix, Arizona, Costa Rica and the Philippines.

Its Philippine operation is expected to be the fastest growing site of all ACE Global locations worldwide.

The Philippines is pinning its hopes of posting a decent economic growth this year on the continued growth of the services industry, particularly the BPO sector.