From today banks will remain close for 5 days

• On December 21 and 26, bank unions will be on strike
• December 22 is fourth Saturday and 23 a Sunday
• Banks will remain closed on December 25 on account of Christmas

Between December 21 and 26, public sector banks will remain closed on all days except December 24.

Bank holidays and a couple of strikes may play spoilsport if you had planned to carry out important banking works in the next six days. If you have an account in a public bank, you must not leave urgent banking matters to the year end. Starting December 21, there is a possibility that public sector banks may remain closed for as long as five days.

A bank officers’ association has called for a day-long strike on December 21. The banks will remain closed on December 22 since it is the fourth Saturday of the month. December 23 is a Sunday, hence another holiday for banks.

December 24 (Monday) will provide a small window for carrying out transactions since it is a working day. The next day, December 25, is a holiday on account of Christmas. Then on December 26, the United Forum of Bank Unions (UFBU) has given a call for another strike.

So, between December 21 and 26, public sector banks will remain closed on all days except December 24.

The strike on Friday (December 21) has been called by the All India Bank Officers Confederation (AIBOC). It is aimed at highlighting the association’s demand for full and unconditional mandate for the XIth Bipartite wage revision talks which is based on May, 2017 charter of demands.

The bank officers have rejected calls from the Indian Banks Association (IBA) for calling off their strike as they claim that there has been no “perceptible movement” on their demand, almost 20 months after the talks stated.

This means 3.2 lakh members of the officers’ union will be on a strike on December 21.

In a statement, the confederation said, “It is nothing but a farcical logic to restrict the wage negotiations up to the officers in scale III, whereas the entire officer community is covered under Unified Service Regulations.

Meanwhile, banks are making arrangements to ensure that customers don’t face major hardship during these five days. Extra cash is already being dispatched to ATMs to maintain the cash flow.