New Delhi: Unhappy with wage increase offered by management of banks (IBA), public sector bank employee unions today threatened to go on a four-day strike beginning 25 February.
Indian Banks' Association (IBA) has bettered its earlier offer of 11 percent wage hike to 12.5 percent and then again to 13 percent today.
"Indian Banks' Association (IBA) today offered a meagre 0.5 percent improvement in the pay-in slip cost to 13 per cent which is unacceptable to us," United Forum of Bank Unions (UFBU) Convener MV Murali told PTI.
The unions demand 19 percent hike in wages, he said.
Thus, it has been unanimously decided that bank employees would go on a four-day strike from February 25-28, Ashwini Rana, General Secretary of National Organisation of Bank Workers, said.
If strike happens it would impact government fund transfer during the time of Budget.
Budget session of the Parliament is scheduled to start from 23 February.
All India Bank Employees Association General Secretary CH Venkatachalam said, if a suitable wage negotiation is not reached then unions would not be left with any other option but to go for indefinite strike from 16 March onwards.
The wage revision of public sector bank employees has been due since November 2012.
Earlier, unions had deferred one-day strike scheduled for 7 January as IBA improved the wage hike offer to 12.5 percent from 11 percent earlier.
Following this, unions also deferred the proposed four-day strike from January 21 after the management of banks (IBA) assured that wage related issues will be resolved by early February.
To press for their demand, the bank unions had gone on four-day rotational strike between 2-5 December.
There are 27 public sector banks in the country with a combined employee strength of about 8 lakh. There are about 50,000 branches of these banks across the country.
Bank staff strike may upset salary schedules-The Hindu- 06.02.2015
Bank employees in the State will strike work for four days from February 25, as part of an all-India strike. Bank employees’ organisations that had been engaged in dialogue with the Indian Banks’ Association (IBA) on wage revision, decided to resort to strike after the talks collapsed on Tuesday.
The four-day strike slated at the end of the month is likely to upset the salary payment schedules of various companies as the banks will remain out of operation for five consecutive days, including March 1, which falls on Sunday.
People are also expected to face trouble in respect of withdrawal of money from ATMs as the replenishment of cash will not happen on a daily basis. Most ATMs may get drained out within two days unless the cash is replenished.
The strike is being organised under the aegis of the United Forum of Bank Unions (UFBU), an umbrella organisation of nine bank employees’ bodies. UFBU had been demanding 25 per cent increase on payslip components, which was reduced to 19.5 per cent subsequently.
The IBA’s final offer of 13 per cent increase in payslip components was not acceptable to employees’ unions, UFBU State convenor C.D. Josson told The Hindu .
Demonstrations at various places to highlight the issues would begin next week, he said.
The employees have also decided to resort to an indefinite strike from March 16. Asked whether there was any move for reconciliation, he said it was usual to have conciliatory talks prior to the strike, refraining himself from making any speculation on its outcome.
The bank employees had gone on a token strike in November last and December over the wage revision issue. Wage revision is due from November 1, 2012, as the bipartite agreement had expired on October 31, 2012. Over a dozen rounds of discussions were held since then.
Wages and service conditions in the banking sector are governed by the bipartite agreements signed between the IBA and employees’ unions in the banking industry. Mr. Josson said the previous bipartite agreement had provided for 17.5 per cent increase in wages.
Why NPAs have reared their ugly heads once more-MoneyControl
Of the 10 public sector banks that have reported third-quarter earnings, seven have reported non-performing assets (NPA) of over 5 percent. CNBC-TV18's Latha Venkatesh spoke with two veteran banks to understand why the NPA menace is far from over.
ver each of the five trading days this week, the Nifty dropped on each, led by the Bank Nifty. This was due to the relentless news coming out on earnings front with respect to non-performing assets (NPAs) of public sector banks (PSBs).
Of the 10 PSBs that reported earnings, seven reported bad loans at over 5 percent of total loans while the strongest, Bank of Baroda , reported an 18 percent jump. NPA for the second-largest, Punjab National Bank , stood at 6 percent.
The picture for the smaller ones is scarier: UCO Bank added Rs 2000 crore of bad loans, or 28 percent higher, in just 90 days while IOB’s bad loans touched 8.2 percent.
Why this haemorrhage and how should we stop it? Why have bad loans taken a quantum leap in Q3? Why are borrowers failing to pay at such a fast clip? What kind of borrowers are defaulting? Does the banking system need some emergency external help to stem the tide?
CNBC-TV18’s Latha Venkatesh spoke with Diwakar Gupta, Ex-MD, State Bank of India and SC Bansal, former CMD, Oriental Bank of Commerce , to get their views on this.
Link Money Control Describing Details of Interview
My Comments on above interview
It is unfortunate that majority of media men or interview takers of print media or TV media do not have adequate knowledge about functioning of bank and about process of sanctioning of loans in banks. They ask various questions to CMD or ED or retired CMD of bank and collect some comments of these VIPs and print it to fill their blank space or show them on TV to earn TRP.
Every quarter some bank or the other book higher NPA ratio and lesser profit. Every time top officials of banks and RBI appear on media and tell that position of bank is healthy and from next quarter there will be improvement. In fact no improvement is visible in any bank. Bankers who are clever in restructuring process, they are using this tool to hide bad debts. When this continues for some quarters , they fail to continue this and constrained to declared the same as NPA. Without applying restructuring process of bad loans, none of PS banks can book improvement in their health.
Since 2010 when Core banking solution was adopted by banks, exposure of misdeeds of top bankers are slowing surfacing and coming to light. It is the fraudulent act of top officials of banks which kept bad debts hidden in system and when CBS came, these top officials could not continue the mischievous tactics to hide bad debts in the same way as they could from 1991 to 2010.
Media men do not have capacity to understand whether the person to whom they are interviewing are telling truth or simply making lame excuses to cover up their misdeeds which have resulted in accumulation and rise in bad debts in banks where they worked or where they are working.. The person who have looted the bank and who are mainly and primarily responsible for rise in bad debts will definitely blame global recession or natural calamities or some other unnatural events so that media do not point out accusing fingers towards them. Clever officials first commit fraud with banking systems and procedures and then earn name and fame by appearing in media and win the heart of RBI officials and ministers so that they may get new assignment even after retirement.
There are internal reasons like corrupt manpower , inefficient manpower, unskilled manpower, flattery and bribery culture ,delay in sanction and many other factors which have contributed mainly in rise of bad debts. Top officials of each Public sector bank failed to properly run the bank and it is they who promoted bribery and flattery culture in banks which has damaged the fundamentals of banks.
Therefore ,I simply request media men to ask ED, CMD of banks who instead of owning responsibility for sickness of banks are blaming extraneous factors , why private banks have been rising up and up, booking higher and higher profit and whose balance sheet have minimum ratio of Non Performing assets under the same government, same economic global situation, same domestic environment and same administrative and legal set up .
Last but not the least , It is also true that political exploitation of public sector banks have added fuel to fire and the ineffective and corrupt legal machinery have played destructive role and caused accumulation of court cases against defaulters for years and decades. On the contrary private banks kept its management strong and effective and hence they could not be exploited by politicians nor by legal or administrative machineries. Priority of top officials of banks is always profitability whereas that of public sector banks is to please ministers and higher bosses. Officers worship bosses in PS banks whereas officers in private banks worship work and profit only.
My Comments on above interview
It is unfortunate that majority of media men or interview takers of print media or TV media do not have adequate knowledge about functioning of bank and about process of sanctioning of loans in banks. They ask various questions to CMD or ED or retired CMD of bank and collect some comments of these VIPs and print it to fill their blank space or show them on TV to earn TRP.
Every quarter some bank or the other book higher NPA ratio and lesser profit. Every time top officials of banks and RBI appear on media and tell that position of bank is healthy and from next quarter there will be improvement. In fact no improvement is visible in any bank. Bankers who are clever in restructuring process, they are using this tool to hide bad debts. When this continues for some quarters , they fail to continue this and constrained to declared the same as NPA. Without applying restructuring process of bad loans, none of PS banks can book improvement in their health.
Since 2010 when Core banking solution was adopted by banks, exposure of misdeeds of top bankers are slowing surfacing and coming to light. It is the fraudulent act of top officials of banks which kept bad debts hidden in system and when CBS came, these top officials could not continue the mischievous tactics to hide bad debts in the same way as they could from 1991 to 2010.
Media men do not have capacity to understand whether the person to whom they are interviewing are telling truth or simply making lame excuses to cover up their misdeeds which have resulted in accumulation and rise in bad debts in banks where they worked or where they are working.. The person who have looted the bank and who are mainly and primarily responsible for rise in bad debts will definitely blame global recession or natural calamities or some other unnatural events so that media do not point out accusing fingers towards them. Clever officials first commit fraud with banking systems and procedures and then earn name and fame by appearing in media and win the heart of RBI officials and ministers so that they may get new assignment even after retirement.
There are internal reasons like corrupt manpower , inefficient manpower, unskilled manpower, flattery and bribery culture ,delay in sanction and many other factors which have contributed mainly in rise of bad debts. Top officials of each Public sector bank failed to properly run the bank and it is they who promoted bribery and flattery culture in banks which has damaged the fundamentals of banks.
Therefore ,I simply request media men to ask ED, CMD of banks who instead of owning responsibility for sickness of banks are blaming extraneous factors , why private banks have been rising up and up, booking higher and higher profit and whose balance sheet have minimum ratio of Non Performing assets under the same government, same economic global situation, same domestic environment and same administrative and legal set up .
Last but not the least , It is also true that political exploitation of public sector banks have added fuel to fire and the ineffective and corrupt legal machinery have played destructive role and caused accumulation of court cases against defaulters for years and decades. On the contrary private banks kept its management strong and effective and hence they could not be exploited by politicians nor by legal or administrative machineries. Priority of top officials of banks is always profitability whereas that of public sector banks is to please ministers and higher bosses. Officers worship bosses in PS banks whereas officers in private banks worship work and profit only.
Crisis looms over public banks as no roadmap yet on govt capital infusion-First Business-07.02.2015
On Thursday, India ratings, formerly known as Fitch India, became the latest rating agency flashing the warning signal to Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley and his budget team on the faltering health of India’s state-run banks and the huge capital they would require thereof.The agency estimates that government banks would require about Rs 5.3 lakh crore of capital in the run up to the Basel-III compliance by 2019, of which Rs 1.6 lakh crore should come from the government. In the immediate future, the government must infuse at least Rs 20,000 crore in these banks, India Ratings said.
As per the Basel-III norms, Indian banks need to have minimum equity capital adequacy ratio of 7 percent and Common Equity Tier-1 (CET-1) capital of 5.5 percent. A Firstpost analysis of Capitaline data shows that at least 5 government banks have Tier-I capital adequacy less than 8 percent.
In addition, banks will also need to build a 2.5 percent capital conservation buffer to be used in bad times. In the recent past, other raters, including Moody’s Investors Services, too flagged caution on the immense capital requirement of state-run banks, giving their own estimates.
According to India Ratings, the main concern of Indian banks in the fiscal year 2015-16 would be that of capital shortage. It will be a bigger worry than the worsening asset quality. But, both the problems are painfully interconnected.
As per Times Of India E-News Govt to infuse Rs 6,990cr in 9 public sector banks
7th Feb, 2015 03:27 PM
undefined NEW DELHI: Government will soon infuse Rs 6,990 crore in nine public sector banks including SBI, Bank of Baroda (BoB), Punjab National Bank (PNB) for enhancing their capital and meeting global risk norms.
This is the first tranche of capital infusion for which the government had allocated Rs 11,200 crore in the Budget for 2014-15.
Among the beneficiaries, largest public sector lender SBI leads the pack with a capitalization of Rs 2,970 crore, followed by BoB Rs 1,260 crore, PNB Rs 870 crore and Canara Bank Rs 570 crore.
"Out of the current year's budget, the government of India has decided to infuse Rs 6,990 crore in nine public sector banks (PSBs) for which orders are being issued," an official statement said.
This year, it said, the government has adopted new criteria in which the banks which are more efficient would be rewarded with extra capital so that they can further strengthen their position.
The capital infusion has been decided based on the performance of the bank. Better the performance higher will be the infusion.
"The methodology for arriving the amount to be infused in these banks has been based on efficiency parameters. First of all, weighted average of return on assets (ROA) for all PSBs for last three years put together was arrived at and all those who were above the average have been considered," it said.
The second parameter that has been used is return on equity (ROE) for these banks for the last financial year. Those who have performed better than average have been rewarded, it added.
Besides, Syndicate Bank will get Rs 460 crore, Allahabad Bank Rs 320 crore, Indian Bank Rs 280 crore, Dena Bank Rs 140 crore and Andhra Bank Rs 120 crore.
The government is in the process of deciding on remaining Rs 4,210 crore capital infusion. The entire fund infusion will be completed before March 31.
Public sector banks require equity capital of Rs 2.4 lakh crore by 2018 to meet global Basel III norms on capital adequacy. For the current fiscal, the government has allocated Rs 11,200 crore for bank capitalization.
Finance minister Arun Jaitley in the Budget speech had said that "to be in line with Basel-III norms there is a requirement to infuse Rs 2,40,000 crore as equity by 2018 in our banks. To meet this huge capital requirement we need to raise additional resources to fulfil this obligation".
While preserving the public ownership, the capital of these banks will be raised by increasing the shareholding of the people in a phased manner through the sale of shares largely through retail to common citizens of this country, the minister had said.
The government has infused Rs 58,600 crore between 2011 to 2014 in the state-owned banks.
The statement further said that the government is conscious of the fact that a lot of reforms are required in the state-owned banks.
With a view to crystallize ideas for reforms, recently a two-day Retreat of heads of public sector banks and financial institutions called 'Gyan Sangam' was held, it said.
"This Retreat generated an agenda in which banks themselves were supposed to undertake certain activities individually or jointly and there were certain things which were supposed to be done by the government," it added.
One of the general principle adopted during the Retreat was that efficient banks should be encouraged, it said.
For the last few years, it said, the government has been infusing capital to those banks whose equity erosion has taken place.
"Therefore, this year, the government of India has adopted this new criteria in which the banks which are more efficient would only be rewarded with extra capital for their equity so that they can further strengthen their position," it added.
UFBU itself responsible for delay. Tell IBA in one word what actually u guy wants. What is your reasonable, suitable, respectable, satisfactory, honourable etc salary. Was 35% not desirable, suitable, reasonable, respectable etc. Are you comrades are politicians who have hundreds of meanings in one word. If a body backed with more than 8 lakh families can't do anything then please give up leadership. Come up in media and let the public know to whom government saves the real enemies oh the nation.
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