More global financial service companies are looking to move jobs to lower-cost countries offshore to cut costs and keep shareholders happy, a survey to be released today has found.

A poll of executives at 156 companies found that 94% expect to be sending work offshore by 2008, up from the current 82 per cent, according to the PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP survey.

While one-quarter of the companies surveyed is now offshoring between 10 and 20% of their work force, that amount will liable to double within three years, says the study, “Offshoring in the financial services industry: Risks and rewards.”

Gartner Group, a research company, estimates the international market for offshore business could reach US$130-billion (U.S.) in 2005. U.S. financial institutions transferred about US$1.4-billion worth of work to India in 2004.

Despite the trend, the survey also said that about half of respondents were dissatisfied with their experiences because of cost overruns, difficulties in recruiting and retaining staff and concerns about cultural differences between offshore employees and customers.

Cost-saving was the reason cited for offshoring by 79% of the executives surveyed, and 74% of financial services companies did save costs by outsourcing work offshore, the survey found.

However, nearly a third of respondents found no cost savings in the first year of offshoring, and 15% reported no change even after five years.