Banks may work for 5 days a week now

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Bank employees may get good news soon. Bank employees unions have been continuously demanding a five-day working week for banks. The Indian Banks Association (IBA) has given its approval to the proposal of working five days a week in banks. This means that now every Saturday and Sunday will be a holiday in the banks. Now this proposal has been sent to the Finance Ministry for final approval. It is up to the Finance Ministry to approve this system.

At present, the banks are open on first, third and fifth Saturday and closed on the other two Saturdays.

According to media reports, in the meeting of the Indian Banks Association (IBA), the representative body of the management of Indian banks, held on July 28, the industry put forward a demand to declare bank holidays on all Saturdays by bank employee unions. If this petition is approved by the Ministry of Finance, then bank branches will be open only five days a week. However, if the five-day week is implemented, then the working hours of the banks would become longer by 45 minutes.

The flip side of this move would be that bank customers who ususally visit the banks on working Saturdays, will now have to visit on a week day, either reporting late for work or taking leave.

Bank employees hope that the Finance Ministry will agree to this petition, which means their demand will be fulfilled. According to media reports, ‘Based on some informal conversations with the ministry, it appears that the government may not have any problem in accepting this request of the bankers’ union.’

Significantly, the demand for two weekly offs has been being made in the banks for a long time, on which the decision is still pending. Meanwhile, after the government implemented the 5-day working system in the country’s largest insurance company Life Insurance Corporation of India (LIC), now the issue of its implementation in banks has also intensified.