Indian bank unions to discuss more strike action

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NEW DELHI: India's bank unions will next week decide whether to take further strike action to protest against plans to modernise the operations of the country's financial institutions, union officials said.

Union officials claimed that as many as one million government bank employees walked off the job on Friday, partially disrupting banking operations in Asia's third-largest economy.

"We will meet in (the southern city of) Bangalore and decide whether we want to hold a two-day strike or maybe an indefinite strike to press for our demands," Vishwas Utagi, secretary of the All-India Bank Employees Association, told Dow Jones Newswires on Friday.

India has been seeking to liberalise key financial sectors such as banking and insurance for years but has been strongly opposed by unions who charge that such moves will lead to job losses.

The Congress Party-led government would like to partially privatise some state-owned banks and outsource some bank jobs.

India has 21 private sector banks and 34 foreign banks, but the country's 26 state-run lenders still dominate the majority of the banking business. State-run banks account for 70 percent of banking operations in India.

Friday's strike was called by the United Forum of Bank Unions, the umbrella body of nine trade unions, after conciliation talks between India's chief labour commissioner and union representatives failed to resolve the dispute.

The walkout affected the clearing of cheques and other banking operations.

While public sector banks reported that the work stoppage paralysed banking operations in parts of eastern India, the impact was only partial in the state of Maharashtra, whose capital, Mumbai, is the country's financial hub.

India's central bank supports allowing public sector banks to outsource banking services to streamline payment methods that are currently a mix of electronic and antiquated paper-based systems.