American Express is reportedly looking to sell the travel-related services portion of its India-based BPO unit in a move that could ultimately see AmEx sell off its entire India-based BPO operation. Such moves would be consistent with a trend that began about 18 months ago with similar sales by Aviva, GE, and British Airways."AmEx's BPO unit in India is a captive one: it caters only to the bank's own clients, providing back-office support covering travel-related services, credit cards, accounting, customer care and related processes for the company's worldwide operations," said the Economic Times of India.

Established over the past several years to take advantage of the skilled and low-cost IT and services labor pool in India, these BPOs have evolved for some companies to a point where they no longer offer significant cost advantages.

As that dynamic began to emerge, Aviva, GE, British Air and others have "decided it was cheaper to outsource the work to specialist providers of back-office and customer-care services," the article said.

The article also speculated that the AmEx travel-services BPO employs about 500 people; the company declined to comment on the report.