Opposition Leader Sajith Premadasa has said he has heard that HSBC’s Global Service Centre in Sri Lanka could move its operations to the Philippines, costing 3,000 direct and 500 indirect jobs, with the withdrawal completed by December 2027.
He made the claim in a post on X, reported by the Daily Mirror at 11.48 a.m. on Monday.
“Aren’t we supposed to attract substantial amounts of foreign direct investments rather than becoming mere spectators of mass-scale foreign investment withdrawals?” Premadasa asked.
“I certainly hope that this isn’t true because, if it is so, it would spell a significant economic setback for our motherland,” he added.
What this is, and what it is not
The provenance matters more than the numbers. This is a politician relaying something he says he has heard, published on social media, and carried by one newsroom. It is not an HSBC announcement, a regulatory filing, or a government statement.
Premadasa’s own framing is conditional throughout — he hopes it “isn’t true.” This article reports the claim and its source, and does not treat the move as established.
As of publication:
- HSBC has issued no statement on the Global Service Centre’s future that any filing reports
- no government ministry or agency has commented
- no verified newsroom has independently reported the relocation; searches returned the Daily Mirror filing and aggregator repostings of it, which add no independently reported fact
The figures — 3,000 direct jobs, 500 indirect, December 2027 — all originate with Premadasa. No published source gives the centre’s actual headcount, so the 3,000 cannot be checked against any disclosed figure.
This is not the HSBC exit Sri Lanka has already had
The distinction is easy to lose and worth stating plainly. HSBC wound up its consumer banking business in Sri Lanka, selling the portfolio to Nations Trust Bank with effect from 30 April. That was retail banking, it was announced by the bank, and it is complete.
The Global Service Centre is a different operation — back-office and business process work performed in Colombo for the group’s international network. A relocation of that centre would be a withdrawal of offshore services capacity, not of a banking licence, and nothing in the completed retail sale implies it.
Why the claim is plausible enough to report
Sri Lanka and the Philippines compete directly for exactly this category of work, and Premadasa’s political framing — that the country should be winning foreign direct investment rather than watching it leave — is the reason the claim travels. The Opposition Leader has made foreign investor withdrawals a recurring line of attack, including over the scrapping of the China Merchants logistics hub at Colombo Port and the investor withdrawals from Port City.
That context explains why he raised it. It is not corroboration of the underlying report.
Not reported
No filing says who told Premadasa, whether staff have been notified, what the centre’s current headcount is, whether HSBC has been asked for comment, or whether the Board of Investment or the Central Bank has any information. Nothing in the record establishes that a decision has been taken at all.
This desk notes that the Daily Mirror’s article carries reader comments asserting that notice has already been issued to staff. Unverified reader comments are not reporting and are not used here as a source.
Sources: Daily Mirror.
