(Adds details, context)
LONDON, April 30 (Reuters) - British bank Barclays
has rushed out 1 million pounds ($1.4 million) worth of medical
supplies to India in the last week to help communities there
tackle the surge in COVID-19 cases.
"We are very focused on India right now, which is our second
biggest employee location," Chief Executive Jes Staley told
reporters after the bank's first quarter results.
Staley said Barclays - which has roughly 20,000 employees in
India - had directed money from its charitable funds to partners
in India.
Over the last year, it has also shifted some of the workload
back to the United Kingdom.
India's total COVID-19 cases exceeded 18 million on Thursday
after another record number of daily infections added to the
strain on already overwhelmed hospitals.
Employers in India have set up COVID-19 "war-rooms" to
source oxygen, medicine and hospital beds for infected workers,
Reuters reported, while banks including Goldman Sachs and
Standard Chartered are preparing vaccination drives.
"We are very mindful that a number of employees need to stay
home. We want to keep paying them, but allow them to help their
families manage," Staley said.
He said an increased number of calls from British customers
in the pandemic had added pressure, but UK-based staff had
helped out, especially in branches.
"Historically we have not used branch centre staff to take
incoming call centre calls. We asked them if they would mind and
they stood up. That's an exercise we will continue past the
pandemic," he said.
($1 = 0.7182 pounds)
(Reporting by Lawrence White, Writing by Iain Withers
Editing by Rachel Armstrong and Barbara Lewis)