The appointment of BCG marks the involvement of four international consultants in the StanChart-Grindlays merger saga. Warburg Dillon Read was the advisor to StanChart to the $1.3 billion Grindlays buyout deal announced on April 27. Two other global consultants involved are McKinsey & Co and KPMG. ANZ Grindlays appointed McKinsey & Co last year for business re-engineering while KPMG has been with StanChart for quite sometime as a financial consultant and auditor.

According to sources, BCG will help the internal task forces to achieve the integration process without glitches. ``The external integration consultant will make sure that a single line of thought is pursued across all countries in MSEA,'' sources said.

With a sizable surplus staff, executives of both the outfits will be required to go through an interview process to qualify for all posts at the middle and senior level. ``For every post, there will be more than two contenders. External agencies will be involved in identifying the right candidates. It will be a transparent process,'' sources pointed out.

StanChart group CEO Rana Talwar has reportedly mentioned to the senior executives of both the banks that those who fail to qualify for the posts would form a talent pool and redeployed in StanChart's worldwide operations.The bank has recently acquired international trade finance business of the Union Bank of Switzerland and Nakornthon Bank, Thailand. Sources said a chunk of the ``surplus'' staff in India can be redeployed in the new operations on StanChart.

StanChart employs 1,700-and-odd staff spread over 19 branches in eight cities while ANZ Grindlays has a staff strength of 3,300 spread across 29 branches in 15 cities. The merged entity will not require more than 60 per cent of the total staff strength.

ANZ Grindlays director international operations Elmer Funke Kupper has reportedly promised to roll out loyalty incentives to the bank staff which will ensure a temporary step-up package to those who will stay on at this juncture.

StanChart is in the process of appointing several task forces in each centres which will be reporting to the respective country manager who in turn will report to the global integration executive. The global integration executive will flag off the critical issues to a steering committee at the top.

In India, StanChart is likely to have at least four task forces on corporate and investment banking, treasury, consumer banking and HR headed by two co-chairpersons-one each from the two banks.

Each task force may have sub-task forces, sources said. For instance, the task force on treasury will have money and forex sub-task forces while consumer banking task force will have retail, marketing and credit card sub-task forces.