Big banks: India wants to make, US wants to break, neither can find a solution

In India, there is increasing talk of merging smaller banks to create a behemoth that will take on larger global players and fund big infrastructure projects. Finance Minister Arun Jaitley has already set the ball rolling for bigger banks by getting state-owned State Bank of India to absorb its smaller associates.Contrast this with the narrative in the US, where President Donald Trump said over the weekend that he is thinking of breaking up the giant Wall Street banks.While a straightforward comparison cannot be made between big banks in the two countries, both models deliver a strong underlying message.

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Cheque Truncation System or CTS 2010

What is Cheque Truncation System or CTS 2010 :

The full form of CTS is Cheque Truncation System.  RBI has decided to launch this system and all banks across India are required to follow RBI guidelines in this regard.  As per RBI guidelines, now all banks have to issue cheques conforming to the CTS 2010 standards with uniform features.

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Bank employees to hold all India strike on February 7

Three bank employees' organisations are planning to conduct all India strike on February 7, 2017, seeking the banks and the government to address issues concerning demonetisation and bad loans.

The All India Bank Employees'Association (AIBEA), All India Bank Officers Association (AIBOA) and Bank Employees Federation of India (BEFI) have issued a joint circular to its members announcing various protest including joint mass demonstrations, dharana and one-day strike starting from January 30, 2017.

The organisations alleged that the cash crunch is continuing and most of the ATMs are still non-functional, which lead to tension in banks. They alleged that while everyone appreciated the hard work of the bank employees, officers and managers in managing the situation in the banks, there is reluctance and hesitation in extending proper compensation for the extra hours of additional work.

"When the ordinary and common people are made to face such problems in the name of curbing black money, the big defaulters of bank loans are getting scot-free. No action is being taken against the increasing menace of huge bad loans in the banks except provisions from profits, write-offs and desperate sale of NPAs," says the circular.

The demands they put forward include the demonetisation issues such as ensuring supply of adequate cash to all banks including regional rural banks and co-operative banks; restore all ATMs immediately and ensure availability of cash in ATMs; announce CBI enquiry on instances of huge new currency notes with some big persons when branches are starving on cash and stop diluting autonomy of RBI in currency management.

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Bank Union seeks overtime for extra work due to demonetisation

Days after Prime Minister Narendra Modi praised bank employees for the hard work done during the demonetisation period, a bank union has demanded overtime for the extra hours put in by staff during the 50-day window that ended on December 30.

National Organisation of Bank Workers (NOBW), an affiliate of Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh, in a letter to the Prime Minister said, "Bank employees have worked 12 to 18 hours a day during the last 50 days. Only few banks have considered overtime for extra working. Kindly advise the management to consider the overtime for beyond working hours worked by bank employees."

It also called for stepping up recruitment activities and said that banks are understaffed for implementing all schemes.

NOBW vice president Ashwani Rana also pitched for a decent salary hike in the wage revision due in November this year.

"Wage revision of bank employees is due on November this year. The government has already advised IBA to implement it on due date. We wish to bring to your (PM Modi) kind notice that bank employees are far behind government employees in salary structure. Kindly give a good rise to bank employees and bring them at par with Govt employees," it said.

In his address to the nation, Prime Minister had said "during this period, bank employees have worked day and night. Female employees too worked till late hours as part of this mission".

Post office staff, banking correspondents - all did exceptional work, he had said.

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Stop transferring bankers

For years, India’s banks have built marketing campaigns reinforcing customer service as a key differentiator. But they have continued to lag the large global banks in customer service.

While there are many factors affecting this important attribute, a key reason is that our banks continue to cling to an age old management practice from the days of the Raj: routinely transfer managers to a different banking center, generally in a different city or town, without regard to how such moves may affect customer service.

The arguments for defending this medieval practice are many. Bank officials may get too cushy with customers and engage in corruption. Transfers are an efficient performance management tool to reward “good” employees with choice locations whereas officials with below average performance can be “punished” by being transferred to undesirable outposts. Startup branches in remote locations could never get off the ground unless experienced managers and staff from established branches are moved there to begin operations.

Old habits

But in India’s modern banking system, these traditional defences no longer hold merit. NEFT platforms, mobile banking and ATMs, available on a 24x7 basis, have dramatically reduced the need for customers to go to a branch. As India slowly moves to a more cashless economy, foot traffic into bank branches ought to fall further even as automated transaction volumes tend to go higher and higher.

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How to calculate Overtime wages?

As concept of overtime was stopped many years back, even senior employees forgot the calculations, leave alone new comrades.

For the benefit of all I hereby give the details of calculations with examples.

Overtime work shall be paid for at the rates mentioned below:

Category of Employee	% of hourly emoluments
	Full Working Days	Half Working Days
CLERKS
First two quarter hours of overtime work	@ 100	@ 100
Next four quarter hours of overtime work	@ 170	@ 170
Next four quarter hours of overtime work	@ 200	@ 170
Rest of the overtime work	@ 200	@ 200
Subordinate Staff
First four quarter hours of overtime work	@ 150	@ 150
Next four quarter hours of overtime work	@ 200	@ 170
Rest of the overtime work	@ 200	@ 200

For the work done on Sundays and holidays to which he may be entitled, a workman (including a peon who is asked to work as a Watchman on such days) will be paid for the entire period of work at 200% of his hourly emoluments, unless any such day happens to be a working day for him.

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How to transfer money using UPI

Digital payment and cashless is the new and upcoming way of payment system and the recently launched Unified Payment Interface (UPI) is likely to gain popularity with the government's recent move of banning Rs500 and Rs1000 notes.

UPI enabled apps allows transaction to be done through any smartphone, using VPA-Virtual Payment Address. It reduces the cost of transaction compared to ATM or cheque. It is to make payments convenient and enable users to complete transactions in lesser time by reducing the number of steps. The transactions done through UPI app can be done 24/7 with immediate transfer of money from one bank account to other. The main attractive point of UPI is the money is all these transactions can be done without sharing any personal details like bank account or credit/debit card number. UPI-enable app allows transfers up to Rs.1 lakh and charges 50paise per transaction.

We tell you how to transfer money using UPI enabled apps

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7-Year Jail For Illegal Cash Deposits, Tax Department Warns Violators

Warning people against depositing their unaccounted old currency in someone else's bank account, the tax department has decided to slap charges under the newly enforced Benami Transactions Act against violators that carries a penalty, prosecution and rigorous jail term of a maximum seven years.

In a related development, official sources said that the department has detected over Rs 200 crore in undisclosed income after it conducted over 80 surveys and about 30 searches in cases of suspicious usage of the scrapped currency. About Rs 50 crore has also been seized in these operations since November 8, they said, across various states.

The sources said the taxman has initiated a country-wide operation to identify suspect bank accounts where huge cash deposits have been made post November 8, when government demonetised the Rs 500 and Rs 1000 currency notes. 

Such instances where the suspicion is found to be true will be prosecuted under the Benami Property Transactions Act, 1988, applicable on both movable and immovable property, that has been enforced from November 1 this year.

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