Reserve Bank of India(RBI)staff go on protest leave Thursday Nov 19,2015

 

Banking services, including the clearing and payment system of the central bank, were hit for about five hours on Wednesday Nov 18,2015 after employees of the RBI went on mass leave seeking wage increase and updation in pension to keep up with rising living costs. 

 

The labour union leaders said the stir was also to protest against the government’s move to take away the central bank’s role in public debt management, besides seeking a strong role in the proposed monetary policy committee.

The clearing and payment system of the central bank resumed at 11 am with no impact on banking operations for the rest of the day.

Among the services that were affected in the earlier part of the day were cheque clearances, payments & settlements and forex transactions. Real Time Gross Settlement or RTGS, a central payment mechanism for transactions, was also not working when the markets opened for trading

Around 17,000 RBI employees went on “casual leave” on Thursday in protest against the reform measures proposed by the government that could clip the powers of the bank. Higher retirement benefits was also a key demand of unions, which led the first such strike at the central bank in six years.

The mass casual leave disrupted settlement of transactions early in the day, according to some market participants. But these issues were ironed out soon enough as RBI cobbled together enough staff to keep the payments system going.
“There were issues with RTGS (real time gross settlement) and settlements were affected (in the morning). However, the volumes were depressed because of the global uncertainty and RBI strike acted like a catalyst to the depressed market conditions. The settlement system was restored by the central bank and the impact was minimal on trading,” Ram Kumar Samantha, vice-president of treasury at SBI DFHI, a large primary dealer, said.

In fact, around Rs.13,000 crore worth of bonds changed hands on Thursday as against a turnover of Rs.11,000 crore on Wednesday.

Foreign exchange transactions, in the cash, spot and forward markets, too, were hassle-free, dealers said.
“Except for stray issues in the morning, we have not seen any hassles in executing forex trades,” said a forex dealer at a public sector bank, asking not to be identified.

RBI, in a release, said the disruptions in clearing and settlements were restricted to “the opening hours” of the day.