Moving to minimise disruption ahead of a three-day nationwide bank strike called by the United Forum of Bank Unions (UFBU) from 28th September to 30 September 2026, the Union ministry of finance (MoF) directed all public sector banks (PSBs) and regional rural banks (RRBs) to function normally on Sunday, 27th September, a day that would otherwise fall within the weekend holiday period immediately before the proposed strike.
Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has approved the operation of bank branches, offices, ATM-linked branches and currency chests on Sunday, the
ministry said in a release.
The move comes as the UFBU, an umbrella body representing seven bank employee and officer unions, has decided to proceed with the three-day strike after conciliation talks failed to produce an agreement on its principal demand for a five-day banking week.
The government and bank managements have appealed to the unions to defer the strike, but the UFBU said in its latest circular that there had been no positive response from the Indian Banks' Association (IBA) or the department of financial services (DFS) on implementing five-day banking.
The union forum said its demand was part of the settlement and a joint note was reached on 8 March 2024, and accused the authorities of keeping the issue pending despite the agreement.
The MoF said the decision to open banks on 27th September is taken because the proposed strike follows the preceding weekend holidays of 26th September and 27 September 2026.
"In order to ensure that the genuine banking needs of the public are not adversely affected for an extended period," all PSBs and RRBs would function normally on Sunday, the ministry said.
The ministry said the government and bank managements had appealed to the unions to reconsider the strike and had taken measures to ensure that essential banking services continued.
The Sunday opening, however, does not alter the UFBU's position on the three-day strike.
In its
latest release, UFBU said the conciliation meeting had ended without a positive outcome and that there had been no concrete response from the IBA or DFS to its demand for five-day banking.
The forum brings together the All-India Bank Employees' Association (AIBEA), All India Bank Officers' Confederation (AIBOC), National Confederation of Bank Employees (NCBE), All India Bank Officers' Association (AIBOA), Bank Employees Federation of India (BEFI), Indian National Bank Employees' Federation (INBEF) and Indian National Bank Officers' Congress (INBOC). UBFU has instructed members of all seven of its constituent unions to participate in the strike.
The unions have also said that employees and officers on probation can join the strike and that participation would not result in the postponement of increments.
UFBU has challenged instructions issued by some banks asking officers in Scale IV and above not to participate in the strike. It has argued that the Industrial Relations Code, 2020 does not prohibit employees or officers of any particular cadre from being union members and said the strike notice covers all members of its constituent unions.
The forum has also said that any adverse action against employees for participating in the strike would be challenged before the appropriate forum.
The dispute over working days has been building for years. Under the agreement reached in March 2024, the unions say the remaining Saturdays were to be declared holidays, effectively creating a five-day banking week. In return, bank employees agreed to extend working hours from Monday to Friday by 40 minutes a day.
The unions maintain that the change would not reduce customer-facing banking hours because the additional weekday working time would compensate for the Saturday holiday.
Banks already remain closed on the second and fourth Saturdays of each month.
According to the UFBU, the proposal was subsequently recommended to the Finance Ministry for approval but has remained pending. The five-day week is therefore at the centre of the current industrial dispute.
The banking unions are also opposed to a revised performance-linked incentive (PLI) framework for senior bank officers.
The dispute concerns officers in scale-4 to scale-7. The UFBU has objected to a system that, according to the unions, shifts the basis of incentives from overall bank performance towards individual performance.
The unions have contrasted the revised framework with the earlier bilateral arrangement under which PLI was linked to the overall performance and profitability of individual banks.
The UFBU has also challenged the revised PLI framework before the Delhi High Court, arguing that changes to the system should be settled through bilateral negotiations with employee organisations.
Earlier this month, the government put the PLI scheme for PSB employees for 2025-26 in abeyance and said the issue would be considered as part of the ongoing bipartite settlement and joint note discussions.
That decision, however, has not persuaded the UFBU to withdraw its strike call.
The 27th September opening is intended to give customers an additional working day immediately before the three-day strike.
However, if employees participate in the three-day action, branch-based services may be affected during the strike. These include cash transactions, cheque-related work, document submission and verification, locker-related services and other activities requiring bank staff.
Digital banking services and automated payment channels are generally separate from branch operations, although transactions that require manual processing or back-office intervention may face delays.
The disruption could become more significant if the unions proceed with their previously announced plan for a continuous, indefinite strike from 26 October 2026, if their outstanding demands remain unresolved.
