5-Day Bank Week in India: When Will It Start After the September Strike Was Deferred?

The five-day banking week has still not started in India. The three-day nationwide bank strike that was due to run from September 28 to 30, 2026 was deferred at the last minute after the Indian Banks' Association (IBA) and the United Forum of Bank Unions (UFBU) reached a late-night understanding on September 28, banks stayed open and functioned normally through the week, and the two sides agreed instead to set up a high-level joint committee to work out the terms. But the underlying demand is far from settled: UFBU has put the government on notice that it will call an indefinite, nationwide strike from October 26, 2026 if a firm timeline is not delivered before then.

For most bank customers, this week's near-miss will feel like nothing happened. For the roughly eight lakh employees and officers in the public banking system, it is the latest turn in a fight that has been running since March 2024 and, in spirit, since 2015.

How we got here

The five-day week — all Saturdays off, with employees working roughly 40 extra minutes Monday to Friday to keep customer service hours unchanged — was first accepted in principle by the IBA in 2015 and then written into the 12th Bipartite Settlement signed on March 8, 2024. The Reserve Bank of India, LIC and GIC already run five-day weeks; public-sector and most private banks still close only on the second and fourth Saturdays. More than eighteen months after the 2024 settlement, the finance ministry's final sign-off has still not come through, which is the core grievance UFBU has repeated at every stage of this year's agitation.

Frustration over the delay boiled over on September 11, 2026, when UFBU went ahead with a one-day nationwide strike despite a government request to postpone it — the government had asked for a deferral because the BRICS Leaders' Summit was being held in New Delhi from September 11 to 13. UFBU said it would only reconsider strike action "if there was a favourable decision or a firm timeline" on its demands, and proceeded with the walkout.

The PLI dispute, in numbers

Running alongside the five-day week issue is a separate, more technical fight over incentive pay that has done as much as anything to harden union positions. In November 2024, the Department of Financial Services notified a revised Performance-Linked Incentive (PLI) scheme for public sector banks. Under the 2020 arrangement that had applied since, every employee and officer up to Scale VII could earn a PLI of up to 15 days' basic pay plus dearness allowance, tied to the bank's overall performance. The 2024 revision carved out senior officers of Scale IV and above — roughly 40,000 people, about 5% of the sector's workforce, according to a circular from the All India Bank Employees' Association (AIBEA) — and allowed them to earn up to 365 days' basic pay, a full year's pay, based on individual rather than bank-wide performance.

Unions argued this created a two-tier structure that would breed "division and disharmony amongst the senior officers" rather than motivate them, and that it broke from the uniform, bank-performance-linked model both sides had agreed to in 2020. After a UFBU-IBA meeting on August 20, 2026 failed to resolve the dispute, the government stepped back: on September 7, 2026, the finance ministry said it would keep the November 2024 PLI scheme in abeyance for FY26. The matter is also reported to be under litigation in the Delhi High Court, so even the abeyance is not a final resolution.

It was against this backdrop — one strike already held, a second bigger one three weeks later, and a third threatened for October — that the September 28-30 action was called off. The IBA and UFBU's newly formed committee has been tasked specifically with working out how remaining Saturdays could become holidays, while pension updates, a uniform dearness allowance formula for retirees and the option for employees under the National Pension System to move to the Old Pension Scheme remain on the broader list of unresolved demands.

What it means for you

If you bank with a public-sector lender: nothing changes immediately. Branches are open on their normal six-day schedule, including the second and fourth Saturdays, and there is no confirmed date for a shift to five-day banking — reports of an imminent switch have circulated before and been officially denied. Keep October 26, 2026 in mind, though: if the IBA-UFBU committee has not produced a credible timeline by then, an indefinite strike at public-sector and regional rural banks becomes a real possibility, which would affect cheque clearing, branch cash transactions and loan processing far more than a one- or three-day strike does. During any strike, ATMs, UPI, net banking and mobile banking (including SBI's YONO) typically continue to function, so routine transactions are rarely at risk even when branches shut.

If you work in a public-sector bank, especially at Scale IV and above: the PLI abeyance means the November 2024 formula is on hold for FY26, not cancelled, and its replacement is still being negotiated with litigation pending in the Delhi High Court — so treat any PLI payout structure you hear about as provisional until the ministry issues a fresh order. And if you're tracking the five-day week specifically for planning purposes, the honest answer is that a firm start date has not been set; the joint committee's findings, expected before the October 26 deadline UFBU has set, are the next real checkpoint.

Sources: The Week, Moneylife, ETV Bharat, Outlook Business, and AIBEA.