A CAMPAIGN to safeguard hundreds of jobs at a Hampshire call centre is being launched amid fears banking bosses are planning to transfer operations to India.

Union leaders will be petitioning staff and customers at Lloyds TSB branches in the county next week in a bid to halt any exodus of jobs abroad.

They claim 350 jobs at the firm's enquiries and concerns centre in Whiteley are under threat.

The company began a pilot scheme in Bangalore last April, where employees are dealing with phone calls relating to customers in the UK who have defaulted on credit cards.

In a further possible employment blow, 67 jobs hang in the balance at film processing plant Kodak after bosses said the growth in sales of digital cameras and digital processing on home computers meant work was drying up.

Now the company is in negotiations with staff representatives at the site in Downton, near Fordingbridge, in a bid to work out futures.

A Kodak spokesman said she did not know at this stage if the 67-strong workforce would be re-deployed.

Union leaders at Lloyds TSB claim jobs at its enquiries and concerns centre in Whiteley are at risk.

Bosses revealed they hope to create 1,500 jobs there by the end of the year but insisted jobs at Whiteley business Park complex were not under threat. But the Lloyds TSB Group Union remain adamant that the pilot scheme could pave the way for more work to be transferred to India to save costs.

Assistant general secretary Nick Holt said: "We believe most customers will agree that the bank has a social responsibility to keep jobs in the UK."

Officials will tour county branches between Tuesday and Thursday.

Workers at Abbey's Segensworth branch were relieved this month when bosses axing of call centre jobs was restricted to the north of the country.

A spokesman for Lloyds TSB said: "There are no current plans to move any jobs from Whiteley to India."

Mark Oaten MP, whose constituency includes the business park, said: "It would be a great pity if we lost more and more services to other countries."