Banks may soon have all Saturdays off; 5-day workweek possible: Report

livemint.com:

Business Line, the demand put forward by bank employee unions to declare all Saturdays as a bank holiday has been accepted by India's Bank Association on the 28th July meeting. Now, the representative body of management of Indian banks has forwarded the petition to the Ministry of Finance for its approval.

If the Union Finance Ministry also approves it then banks will be in operation only five days a week, and the employees will not have to work on 1st and 3rd Saturdays. besides, the daily work hours at branches could be extended by 45 minutes, the Business Line report added.

Bankers are confident that their proposal would get approval from the FinMin. The English Daily citing sources said, " Based on some of the informal talks with the ministry, it seems like the government may not have an issue in accepting this request from the bankers' union".

Earlier this year in March, the All India Bank Employees' Association issued a circular wherein it mentioned that the IBA agreed to enforce a five-day work week for bank employees. The AIBA also mentioned, "It has emerged that the total working hours can be increased by 40 minutes per day with cash transactions from 10 am to 4 pm and non-cash transactions up to 4-30 pm".

Several rounds of meetings have happened in the past related to the five-day work week for banks but no substantial outcome has come up so far. It remains to be seen whether this time the Finance MInistry will approve the demand of bank unions.