Back-office costs not too high, not that low

It costs $10.9 million a year to run a financial services back office in Indianapolis—a mid-pack figure among 40 top U.S. and foreign cities, a new study says.

The study by New Jersey-based site selection firm The Boyd Co. Inc. lists San Francisco as the most expensive; a corporate back office there would cost $13.6 million annually. New York City came in a close second, at $13.3 million.

In its analysis, Boyd based its costs on a hypothetical 30,000-square-foot office with 125 workers.

Costs in Indianapolis were lower than other regional financial hubs, including Chicago, Minneapolis, Boston, Pittsburgh and Columbus, Ohio, the study said.

Among the 40 cities included, Warsaw, Poland, had the lowest costs, at $5.5 million annually.

Boyd said the study included metro areas with a population of at least 500,000 that “are increasingly on Boyd’s radar screen for new back-office operations in the banking and financial services industry.”•