Strike, holidays to disrupt banking ops next week

Normal banking transactions are likely to be paralysed over the next one week owing to a series of holidays and bank strike on December 21 and 26.

All India Bank Officers Confederation (AIBOC) has called for a bank strike on December 21, which is demanding for an unconditional mandate for the XIth bipartite wage revision talks. As a result, the banking operations are likely to be disrupted. The banks will be closed on Saturday (December 22) as it’s the fourth Saturday of the month and is followed by Sunday. Again, on Tuesday, the banks are closed on account of Christmas. Another strike is called on Wednesday, December 26 by the United Forum of Bank Unions (UFBU), which is also demanding wage revision.

According to estimates, over three lakh bank officers will not be reporting to work on Friday, in response to the strike call. State Bank of India transactions are also expected to be affected by the strike as its employees have also expressed their support to the proposed strike. The Bank alone serves over 420 million customers across the country, the banking sources indicated.

According to sources, extra cash is being dispatched to the Automated Teller Machines (ATMs) so that customers don’t face any kind of hardships over the weekend.

“We have dispatched extra cash to the ATMs so that the flow of cash is not disrupted,” a senior official of SBI told DH.