| Over nine lakh employees of nationalised banks, helped by counterparts in the State Bank of India (SBI) joining their one-day strike, brought three-fourth of the country’s banking sector to standstill over bank managements declining to entertain their demand for a second chance to opt for pension in lieu of provident fund.
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| Volumes in the overnight call money and foreign exchange markets halved and the volume of cheques clearance volume also dipped.
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| The United Forum of Bank Unions (UFBU), the umbrella body of nine unions representing employees in the banking sector, will meet again on November 9 to decide the further course of action, including further strikes, said C H Venkatachalam, general secretary of All India Bank Employees’ Association.
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| Cheque clearing volumes in Mumbai were sharply down. A total of 2,700 cheques worth Rs 44 crore were received for clearing in south Mumbai against the normal volume of 8,000-10,000 cheques worth about Rs 100 crore.
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| Employees of some private banks such as ICICI Bank, HDFC Bank, UTI Bank and Kotak Mahindra Bank did not participate in the strike. Foreign banks also did not participate in the strike except Standard Chartered.
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| The employees were also demanding withdrawal of permission to banks to outsource routine and permanent jobs to private agencies, calling off of plans for consolidation among public sector banks and keeping intact the 10 per cent ceiling on voting rights of shareholders in private sector banks.
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| AP Bank Employees Federation general secretary, B S Rambabu, said, “Not even a single clearing transaction was made in any bank in Andhra Pradesh.”
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| There was not much impact of the PSU bank strike on government securities, which clocked volumes of around Rs 3,500 crore. Dealers said foreign and private banks were active both in the government securities and foreign exchange market.
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| Volumes in the foreign exchange market, however, fell to $500-600 million, which is almost half the normal volumes. The rupee rallied in thin volumes to close at a 5-month high of Rs 45.18 against Rs 45.25 yesterday.
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| Since the demand remained high in government securities, prices of long-term papers rose by 30-40 paise. The yield on the 10-year paper fell to 7.61 per cent from 7.63 per cent yesterday. |
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