The upcoming three-day bank strike, called by the United Forum of Bank Unions (UFBU), is expected to disrupt branch services and raise fresh concerns about month-end salary processing.
Most public sector banks (PSBs), including the State Bank of India, will remain closed from September 28 to 30. Some old-generation private banks, including Federal Bank, South Indian Bank, Dhanlaxmi Bank, RBL Bank, Karnataka Bank, CSB Bank and Jammu and Kashmir Bank, might be affected.
Private lenders such as HDFC Bank, ICICI Bank, Axis Bank and Kotak Mahindra Bank will remain open.
Services like cash deposits, withdrawals, cheque clearances, and applications for new fixed deposits and physical loans might be affected. However, the institutions have stressed that digital services, including UPI, internet banking, mobile banking and ATM services, will be available.
While customers were worried about a five-day consecutive closure as it coincided with a second-Saturday weekend, the government announced that PSBs and regional rural banks will remain open on Sunday.
Despite a working Sunday, the government has anticipated difficulty in salary payments because of the break. The finance ministry’s Controller General of Accounts (CGA) has issued an order allowing central government employees to receive their salary, wages and pension on September 25 instead of the month-end. This does not apply to state government employees.
However, if a private organisation's account or an employee’s credit account is with one of the participating banks, the employer’s payroll process may affect the salary-credit date.
If the company uses a private or fully digitised banking portal and has a healthy cash balance, employees’ salaries will arrive exactly on time, with exceptions for issues such as transaction traffic. But for organisations and workers that depend on physical branch infrastructure or clearing operations, the strike might dent payroll processing.
The bank unions have called a fresh strike after their demands, including a regular corporate five-day banking week for employees, changes to the Performance Linked Initiative (PLI) structure and pension scheme, were not met during the recent strike on September 11.
