Recently, IBA has released a letter to all public sector banks. In view of the strike call by UFBU and other Unions, a meeting of the MD&CEOs of PSBs and IDBI Bank was convened on 20/09/2026, under the Chairmanship of Chairman IBA, Shri C S Setty. During the meeting, deliberations were held on Clause 16 of the 5th Joint Note, and it was advised to identify the common sensitive installations and share the same across all PSBs for the standardization of sensitive installations.
As per clause 16 of the 5th Joint Note: “Officers manning hubs/switch centers, disaster recovery centers or similar sensitive installations requiring round-the-clock maintenance/surveillance and Security Officers required to provide round-the-clock maintenance/surveillance shall not participate in any work stoppage/strike action.
As per Clause 37 (i) of the 8th BPS: “In supersession of clause 22(c) of Bipartite Settlement dated 10th April 1989, watch and ward staff and employees manning installations which require round-the-clock maintenance and surveillance on duty on days of agitation/strike action are exempt from participating in such action.
IBA has identified 17 sensitive installations where round the clock management / surveillance is required. As per IBA, employees working in the following 17 offices will not participate in strike.
- Security Officers and Surveillance Staff: Monitoring the security function of the Bank.
- Data Centres (DC) & Disaster Recovery (DR) Centres: The core IT infrastructure hosting CBS, servers, and network operations, Near Disaster Recovery (NDR), Co-location Data Centre.
- Payment, Settlement & Remittance Hubs: Centralized cells processing Prepaid instruments, AePS, RTGS, NEFT, IMPS, NACH, UPI transactions and Reconciliation team.
- ATM Operations & Switch Centres: Departments and vendor teams monitoring ATM networks, hubs, card switches, and payment gateways.
- Currency Chests & Cash Processing Centres: Facilities managing the storage, sorting, and supply of physical currency and coins.
- Treasury Operations & SWIFT Cells: Front and back offices handling liquidity, forex dealing, investments, and international messaging (SWIFT).
- Cyber Security Operations Centres (CSOC/CISO): Units dedicated to 24×7 threat monitoring, IT security, and network protection.
- Clearing Processing Centres (CCPC / CPU): Centralized units handling inward/outward cheque clearing and CTS (Cheque Truncation System).
- Digital / Alternate Delivery Channel Operations: Teams managing and monitoring Internet Banking, Mobile Banking, CBDC, and other digital platforms.
- Fraud Risk Management (FRM) & I4C Cells: Departments monitoring suspicious digital transactions and coordinating with Law Enforcement/I4C on a 24×7 basis.
- Network Operations Centre
- Centralised Pension Processing Cells
- Contact Centre – Operations including IVR
- Complaint Management Systems
- Centralised Back Offices (CBO): Back offices handling trade finance, account opening, foreign branch support, and reconciliation.
- Call Centres / Contact Centres: 24×7 customer service and grievance redressal channels.
- Government Business & PFMS Cells: Departments handling the Public Financial Management System (PFMS) and government agency business.
UFBU has said that these 17 sensitive installations were not covered in bipartite settlement. UFBU said that IBA can’t unilaterally try to change the agreed provisions of bipartite settlement.
UFBU has said that no entire department, office, branch, vertical or category of employees/officers can be declared exempt merely because of its nomenclature or inclusion in IBA’s list. UFBU said that any proposal for addition of a new category, function or installation must first be discussed with UFBU and can become operative only upon bilateral agreement; and until such bilateral agreement is reached, no category beyond what is already expressly covered by the existing negotiated provisions shall be treated as exempt.
UFBU has threatened IBA that if the communication dated 23.09.2026 and the enlarged list are not immediately withdrawn or kept in abeyance, UFBU shall be constrained to consider appropriate industrial action, apart from all other organisational and legal measures available to it. If IBA seeks to go beyond the settlement, UFBU necessarily reserves its right to reconsider the continuation of the very exemptions which were extended through bilateral understanding.
UFBU is also seriously contemplating issuance of appropriate notice for termination of all such agreed provisions relating to exemptions from industrial action contained in the Bipartite Settlement/ Joint Note, in accordance with applicable law and procedure.
Read IBA Letter
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