Most of us would think that the ongoing financial crisis and resulting worldwide economic recession has resulted in a significant impact on the health of the Indian BPO industry.

But in contrast a recent report shows that the third quarter of the calendar year 2008 was indeed very strong for the BPO industry.

Official statistics from a leading outsourcing consultancy shows that the three months actually saw a 15 per cent rise in deals.

“Despite the slowdown we have seen companies and banks who are in the process of outsourcing are going ahead with their transactions,” said Nikhil Rajpal, principal, Everest Group.

As per the report, July-Aug transactions rose by 25 per cent from $ 2.6 billion in second quarter to $3.2 billion in third quarter.

Even the BFSI sector, a key driver for this industry, increased its share by 3 percent in outsourcing transactions. Firms like Mphasis which get 40 percent revenues from BFSI say there was no slowdown in this sector.

“We are not seeing a slowdown what we have consistently said is we are beginning to see from last three quarters was delay in decisions by customers not project cancellations, we are also seeing deal size is getting bigger,” said Jeya Kumar, CEO, Mphasis.

Overall, the Everest report shows companies continued outsourcing  for the cost advantage in the downturn, but it would be fourth quarter that would see the real impact of the slowdown.