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May 3, 2001
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Money > Business Headlines > Report May 3, 2001 |
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PSU banks drop Sunday banking plansK Ram Kumar The public sector banks' initiative of offering extended business hours and seven-day banking to keep their customers happy in the metros has fallen short as they do not have enough manpower to run the day-to-day operations, thanks to the voluntary retirement scheme. Feeling the heat of competition from private sector banks, the state run banks had in the last couple of years kicked off double-shift banking at busy branches and also extended business hours to six hours against the earlier four at many centres depending upon the volume of business generated. These banks, which have already made grandiose announcements of offering longer business hours and Sunday banking facility to customers, are in no position in going ahead with their plans as there is a manpower crunch at the officer level, sources said. As a direct fallout of the immensely successful VRS, some of the banks in Bombay have stuck notices at their branches informing the 'esteemed customers' about reverting back to the original business hours. Even banking at regular hours has been affected. The recent golden handshake scheme in the industry received an overwhelming response with about 60,000 officers, 40,000 staff and 25,000 sub-staff level employees putting in their papers as the terms of the separation package was very lucrative. More number of officers compared to other categories of employees opted for the VRS. "Though the PSU banks have aggressively embraced information technology, the shedding of the flab by them has thrown cold water on their plans to offer competitive services like the private sector banks," a banker said. He added that these banks will now have to step on the gas and focus on setting up ATMs, offer phone banking (which do not involve human interface) and network their branches so as to be able to offer multi-branch banking facility. Another hindering factor in offering such 'convenience services' to customers is the fact that as per existing bilateral agreements signed between the bank managements and the employee unions, award (clerical) staff cannot be transferred (redeployed) beyond 50 kilometres from his/her place of residence. Powered by YOU MAY ALSO WANT TO READ:
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