Banks To Stay Open Next Sunday: RBI Directs Agency Lenders To Function All-Day On March 31

The RBI on March 20 directed agency banks in the country to remain open on March 31, which is a Sunday. This comes at a time, when the month of March has 14 non-working days for the country's lenders, across the board.

This is also a crucial time of the year, as the financial year officially comes to an end on the same day, and the new fiscal year, FY25 starts.

In the notification issued on its website, the central bank said, "The Government of India has made a request to keep all branches of the banks dealing with Government receipts and payments open for transactions on March 31, 2024 (Sunday) so as to account for all the Government transactions relating to receipts and payments in the FY 2023-24 itself. Accordingly, Agency Banks are advised to keep all their branches dealing with government business open on March 31, 2024 (Sunday)".

The statement further reads, "Banks shall give due publicity about the availability of above banking services on this day."

As per RBI notification issued in May 2023, the list of Agency Banks are as follows:

Public Sector Banks

1) Bank of Baroda

2) Bank of India

3) Bank of Maharashtra

4) Canara Bank

5) Central Bank of India

6) Indian Bank

7) Indian Overseas Bank

8) Punjab and Sind Bank

9) Punjab National Bank

10) State Bank of India

11) UCO Bank

12) Union Bank of India

Private Sector Banks

1) Axis Bank Ltd.

2) City Union Bank Ltd.

3) DCB Bank Ltd

4) Federal Bank Ltd.

5) HDFC Bank Ltd.

6) ICICI Bank Ltd.

7) IDBI Bank Ltd.

8) IDFC FIRST Bank Ltd

9) IndusInd Bank Ltd

10) Jammu and Kashmir Bank Ltd. *

11) Karnataka Bank Ltd.

12) Karur Vysya Bank Ltd.

13) Kotak Mahindra Bank Ltd.

14) RBL Bank Ltd

15) South Indian Bank Ltd.

16) Yes Bank Ltd.

17) Dhanlaxmi Bank Ltd.

18) Bandhan Bank Ltd.

19) CSB Bank Ltd.

20) Tamilnad Mercantile Bank Ltd.

Meanwhile, the government had recently proposed to change the working schedule of banks from the current six-day work-week to a five-day work week, with a two-day weekend.