Bank unions protest RBI order to keep branches open Sunday for LIC IPO

Bank officers union AIBOC has objected to the RBI's decision to open ASBA-designated branches on Sunday to facilitate subscription to the public offer of LIC, saying it will serve no purpose as most of the applications are filed digitally.

Most of the branches are ASBA (Application Supported by Blocked Amount) designated with rapid digitisation.

"Considering extensive usage of online subscription of IPO among the investors, we are of the considered view that most of the branches will not get even a single application on Sunday in the physical format. In such circumstances, the decision to keep open all the bank branches is per se farcical and banks cannot afford to bear such humongous expenditure," AIBOC said in a statement.

This has naturally created angst and displeasure among the officers fraternity of the banks, who are actually the drivers of the industry, the All India Bank Officers' Confederation (AIBOC) said.

While the DIPAM has been over-enthusiastic to ask branches to work on holiday, it said, the RBI has not assessed the actual requirement to keep all the branches open.

The decision will not yield any result rather impose huge financial burden which is estimated to be more than Rs 100 crore on account of employee compensation and other operational costs to keep the branches open on a holiday, it said.

Considering all these aspects, the RBI should review its decision and recall its order of opening branches on Sunday, the union said.

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) on Wednesday had directed banks that all ASBA-designated branches will remain open for public on Sunday to facilitate processing of applications for LIC's initial public offering (IPO).

State-owned LIC's IPO, the country's biggest ever offer, closes on May 9. There will be bidding on May 7 (Saturday) and May 8 (Sunday) as well.