H-1B visa fee hike drives Wall Street’s talent shift to India’s financial hubs: Report

The Trump administration’s sharp hike in H-1B visa fees to $100,000 is already reshaping Wall Street’s hiring map, shifting thousands of high-skill finance and tech roles from New York to India’s financial hubs, according to a Bloomberg report.

With tougher immigration rules and soaring visa costs under U.S. President Donald Trump, global investment banks are accelerating their expansion in Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Gurugram and Mumbai, where firms like JPMorgan, Goldman Sachs, and Morgan Stanley now employ more people than in any other country outside the United States.

JPMorgan is recruiting credit-support specialists to check covenant breaches; Goldman Sachs is expanding its loan-review desk; and KKR is adding staff to oversee portfolio companies. Hedge fund Millennium Management is building a risk analytics team in India, while buyout firms such as Oaktree Capital have opened new offices in Hyderabad to manage complex debt portfolios.

This rapid hiring drive is part of a broader recalibration: as Washington tightens immigration and raises costs for skilled foreign workers, Wall Street firms are doubling down on Global Capability Centers (GCCs) across India. Together, these centres employ more than 150,000 professionals, many in quantitative research, AI systems, and risk modelling.

“The fact that these banks are moving their operations to markets where labour is cheaper now that they cannot abuse the H-1B system is evidence that they were using foreign workers to undercut Americans’ wages,” White House spokeswoman Taylor Rogers told Bloomberg, defending the policy as part of Trump’s “America First” agenda.

But industry executives warn the shift could backfire. “India is no longer just a low-cost destination with cheap labor, but a market with deep talent,” said Vivek Ramji Iyer, partner at Grant Thornton Bharat LLP, quoted Bloomberg. “The flip side here is how global geopolitical risks evolve, especially given Trump’s tariff policies, which could potentially bring GCCs in the crosshairs.”

The rise of India’s banking back-end is decades in the making. What began in the 1990s as basic back-office work has evolved into a mission-critical layer of global finance. Goldman Sachs’s Bengaluru team built the Atlas trading system and an AI-based process platform, while BlackRock’s Aladdin portfolio-management suite was partly developed in India.

Recruiters say the $100,000 visa fee has made relocation less appealing for both employers and workers. “With the new fee, they’re starting to question if that job is a priority for them,” said Ben Hodzic of recruitment firm Selby Jennings.

India’s government, meanwhile, is seizing the moment. The Modi administration is offering tax breaks and R&D incentives to attract more global centres, as the GCC industry is projected to generate $100 billion in annual revenue by 2030, according to NASSCOM and Zinnov.