Bank strike 'Total' today

Mumbai, July 28 (UNI) About five lakh employees at public sector banks -- with the exception of State Bank of Bank and Indian Overseas Bank -- a observed a nationwide one-day strike today that significantly affected operations including clearing of cheques, apart from call-money and forex transactions.

Describing the agitation, All India Bank Officers Association (AIBOA) General Secretary S Nagarajan said,''today's Strike was total''. On an average in any given working day, Mumbai banking industry envisages clearing of cheques collectively valued at about Rs 15,000 crore, call money transactions hover between Rs 5000 - Rs 7000 crore and double the quantum of call-money business (Rs 14,000 crore) was foreign exchange transactions, Mr Nagarajan pointed out.

In effect, with the banking operations coming to a grinding halt today, the above business suffered during the day in the megapolis with the next working day being Saturday, most banks work for half-day only and there is no clearing operations, followed by sunday, banks will have a trying time on Monday with the back-log of three days work.

The strike was called by All India Bank Employees Association (AIBEA) and two other unions Maharashtra State Bank Employees Federation (MSBEF) and All India Bank Officers Assocaition (AIBOA) to protest against a move by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) to allow a separate firm to handle all retail payments like cheque clearing operations.

''The strike is mainly focusing the demand that the RBI should withdraw the circular on the outsourcing of the Financial Services,'' a joint statement by bank unions, who fear job losses as a result of the new system and feel that client privacy will be affected when cheque clearing is pooled, said.

''We are against the RBI handing over payments system to private participant,'' said Mr Kamal Bhattacharya, vice president of the All India Bank Employees Association.

The new payments firm, the National Payments Corp., in which many state-run, foreign and private sector banks hold stakes, was formed earlier this year by the banks and the RBI to create a central retail payment system. The existing system is a mixture of archaic paper-based transactions and electronic systems.

But the Indian Banks' Association (IBA), an industry body, maintains that the new firm is not like the outsourcing of back/ office processes by foreign firms from which thousands of Indian workers have benefitted in recent years and rejects the idea it will result in loss of privacy.

''It is not outsourcing, it is the consortium of banks which are moving towards the international practices in clearing,'' said IBA chief executive H N Sinor.

''For historical reasons, the regulator was involved in clearing in India, and the plan is to take that up among the banks themselves.'' Mr Sinor said there was no timeframe in which the shift would be implemented as the banks planned to ''take it in a phased manner'', beginning from big cities.

Those affected included Canara Bank, Punjab National Bank, and Syndicate Bank, while Indian Overseas Bank lent moral support to the strike, union leaders said.

Meanwhile, Mr Nagarajan of AIBOA said the banks unions will be participating in the general workers strike across the country being sponsored by the Left-parties on December 14, to press their demands.

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