Avaloq recruits 75 Scottish graduates
Swiss software solutions company Avaloq is to recruit at least 75 Scottish graduates among the 500 new jobs to be created when it opens its new Edinburgh base.
The announcement was welcomed today by Alex Salmond, who met with senior representatives of the company as plans were officially unveiled for their new Scottish software development centre. The First Minister described the graduate jobs boost as good news for new graduates in Edinburgh and across Scotland.
The development centre – to be sited in Edinburgh city centre – is expected to employ 500 people in its first five years, with 20 staff to start before the end of this year alone.
Recruitment begins today to find the 75 graduate employees who will begin an intensive six-month training programme with the global multinational. The initial recruitment will be the first phase of Avaloq’s employment of graduates in Scotland, with more graduate positions expected over the next five years.
First Minister Alex Salmond said:
“I welcome Avaloq’s commitment to recruit 75 new graduates from Scottish universities which is terrific news for new graduates in Edinburgh and across Scotland. This is a substantial number of training positions being created by a well-respected international software company, whose solutions are used by dozens of banks in more than 20 countries worldwide.
“The plans they are announcing this morning for their Edinburgh software development centre will mean a total of 500 high-quality, highly-skilled new jobs. Private sector job creation is pivotal to Scotland’s economic growth and the most recent figures show employment increased in Scotland by 23,000 over the three months to July 2011, at a time when it fell by 69,000 across the UK as a whole.
“This will be only the second such site for Avaloq anywhere in the world and the first outside their home country of Switzerland. Avaloq have chosen to locate their new software development centre in Edinburgh and to recruit 75 graduates from our universities, which is testament to the high quality of Scottish education and enhances the strength of the city’s international reputation for finance and IT services.”
Avaloq CEO Francisco Fernandez said:
“The UK is one of the most important strategic foreign markets for Avaloq. It is also a base for many important banking customers and Edinburgh is seen as the number two financial market in the country.
“We decided three years ago to create a second site to reach our growth targets. Edinburgh came top of our global search for several reasons, but one of the most important factors was due to the wealth of potential graduate talent available in Scotland and the number of universities offering excellent degrees in software engineering. We very much believe in working with the local talent to grow this operation and are optimistic about the forthcoming student fairs which will be used to identify the first Avaloq appointments.
“The support we have received from Scottish Government and Edinburgh City Council has been extremely encouraging and their collaboration remains important to Avaloq and our plans to grow the development centre in Edinburgh to approximately 500 employees within the next five years.”
Scottish Enterprise Chief Executive Lena Wilson said:
"We have worked extensively with Avaloq to secure this investment in Scotland, which will bring 500 new jobs to Edinburgh.
“Working in collaboration with our public sector partners as part of Team Scotland, we successfully fought to bring these jobs to Scotland. In doing so, Scotland beat a number of other international locations being considered, and Avaloq's decision to invest here is testament both to our strong software skills base and Edinburgh’s reputation as the leading UK financial centre outside of London.
"We are operating in a very competitive inward investment environment and, through our international arm Scottish Development International, we will continue to do everything we can to encourage more companies to locate in Scotland.
“Our message is clear; Scotland is very much open for business and is ready to compete on a global level."
Background
Pictures from today's launch will be available after midday at http://www.flickr.com/photos/scottishgovernment.
Avaloq were established more than 25 years ago and now supplies 75 banks in 20 countries with specialist software. The company is headquartered in Zurich in Switzerland. For more information see www.avaloq.com.
Contact
Annalena Winslow: 0131 244 2954 / 07917 052265
For more information on Avaloq please contact Beth Nicol or Nicki Sturzaker at the Big Partnership on 0131 555 5522.