Bank strikes escalate: one has no end date
Every fact links to its official source.
60-second morning update
Change: Bank unions have escalated their strike plan. After the one-day strike on Friday 11 September, unions have now given notice of a three-day strike from Monday 28 September to Wednesday 30 September, and a continuous, open-ended strike from Monday 26 October. Central Bank of India confirmed this in a stock exchange filing on Wednesday 9 September, citing a notice from the United Forum of Bank Unions.
Impact: This is no longer one bad day. Three rounds of disruption are now on the calendar, and the last one has no end date fixed. Unions want a five-day banking week and a fair, uniform performance-linked incentive scheme, not one that splits staff by individual results.
Action: Update your branch's cash and ATM refill plan to cover all three windows, not just 11 September. Tell customers now that October could bring a longer, open-ended disruption.
Change: At the Global Fintech Fest in Mumbai on Wednesday 9 September, RBI Deputy Governor Rohit Jain said a bank's responsibility for a decision does not disappear just because the technology behind it came from an outside company. He named three risks growing with AI in finance: speed, concentration, and opacity, meaning decisions become harder to see through.
Impact: If your branch or department already uses an AI tool for credit scoring, fraud checks or customer decisions, RBI has said plainly that the bank owns the outcome, not the technology vendor.
Action: Ask your compliance team if every AI-assisted decision in your area has a human who can review and explain it. No explainable human review is now a flagged risk, not a technical detail.
Change: RBI approved ICICI Prudential Asset Management Company to acquire up to 9.95 per cent of AU Small Finance Bank, in an approval letter dated Tuesday 8 September. AU Small Finance Bank told stock exchanges on Wednesday 9 September that the approval covers ICICI Prudential Mutual Fund's schemes, its alternative investment funds, and its portfolio management clients together.
Impact: This raises the combined stake one large asset manager's funds and clients may hold in AU Small Finance Bank, without changing who runs the bank day to day.
Action: Credit and investment teams tracking AU Small Finance Bank should note this new approved ceiling before the next shareholding disclosure.
Change: RBI extended its restrictions on The U.P. Civil Secretariat Primary Co-operative Bank Ltd, Lucknow, for a further three months, from close of business Friday 11 September to close of business Friday 11 December. RBI said this on Wednesday 9 September; the original order began in March 2026.
Impact: RBI's own words: the extension should not be read as RBI being satisfied with the bank's financial position. This is the usual pattern for a stressed co-operative bank, restrictions renewed, not lifted.
Action: NBFC and co-operative desks: any customer or colleague linked to this bank still faces the same withdrawal and lending limits into December.
Reserve Bank of India action board
What changed: Payment aggregators, including Paytm, PhonePe and Google Pay, asked RBI to extend the Tuesday 15 September deadline for merchant re-KYC, citing a large backlog of small QR-code and soundbox merchants. As of today, RBI has not granted any extension.
Who is affected: Compliance and merchant-acquiring teams at banks and payment companies.
What to do: Keep working to the printed date. Industry estimates say 30 to 35 per cent of small offline merchants using QR codes may not finish verification in time. A request for extension is not an extension.
Last date: Tuesday, 15 September 2026.
Source: Free Press Journal, 4 September 2026, citing a Moneycontrol report ↗
What changed: RBI withdrew seven old circulars issued under the Foreign Exchange Management Act, 1999, that it says are no longer operative because newer rules replaced them. The withdrawn circulars date from 2012 to 2015 and covered old external commercial borrowing and money-transfer rules.
Who is affected: Compliance officers and treasury staff who handle foreign exchange and external commercial borrowing files.
What to do: Remove the seven listed circulars from your internal compliance checklists; they no longer apply. The current, active FEMA rules are unaffected.
Last date: Effective Tuesday, 8 September 2026.
Source: Reserve Bank of India, A.P. (DIR Series) Circular No. 21, 8 September 2026 ↗
What it means for your job
Branch: Three strike windows are now on the calendar: Friday 11 September, 28 to 30 September, and an open-ended strike from 26 October. Plan cash and customer notices for all three, not just the first.
Compliance: RBI said this week a bank cannot pass the blame for an AI decision to its technology vendor. Pair that with the 15 September re-KYC deadline: this is a heavy compliance week, not a normal one.
Credit: AU Small Finance Bank's ownership picture just changed on paper: ICICI Prudential AMC and its funds can now hold up to 9.95 per cent. Update your ownership notes before the next filing.
NBFC and co-operative: The U.P. Civil Secretariat Primary Co-operative Bank, Lucknow, stays under RBI restrictions until 11 December, extended again this week. Nothing changes for its depositors before then.
Treasury: RBI used short-term dollar-rupee swaps this week to absorb a record surplus of about 11 lakh crore rupees, around 115 billion dollars, from the banking system, Bloomberg reported. Some swaps mature in October.
Banker problem solver
Your branch's AI-based credit or fraud tool makes a call a customer disputes. Who answers for it?
RBI Deputy Governor Rohit Jain said this week, at the Global Fintech Fest in Mumbai, that responsibility for a decision does not move away from the bank just because a vendor supplied the technology behind it. That makes this a real, immediate question for any branch already using an AI tool for credit scoring, fraud flags or customer checks.
- Do not tell the customer the computer decided. RBI has said plainly the bank owns the outcome, whoever built the tool.
- Find out if a human reviewed this specific decision, and if that person can explain it in plain words. If nobody can, escalate it as a gap, not a one-off.
- Record the review. RBI's stated concern is opacity, meaning decisions nobody can see through. A written note of who reviewed what closes that gap.
- Raise it with your compliance team if this keeps happening. A pattern of unexplained AI decisions is now a flagged supervisory risk, not routine business.
Fraud and risk check
Check today: With the 15 September merchant re-KYC deadline near, RBI has separately warned about fake KYC-update messages that threaten to block an account unless a link is clicked at once. RBI does not send such threats. Tell customers to never click these links; they should visit their bank directly or use the Central KYC system, which needs KYC done only once across institutions.
Career and technology help
One free AI course for anyone in banking, this week
Simplilearn's SkillUp library offers a free one-hour course called AI in Finance, with a free certificate on completion. It covers how banks use AI for fraud detection and credit scoring, in plain terms, no prior coding needed. With RBI now talking openly about AI risk in banking, this is a good week to understand the basics before your branch adopts more of it.
One important number
30 to 35 per cent
Share of small offline merchants using QR codes or soundbox devices that industry estimates say may not finish RBI's re-KYC verification before the 15 September deadline.
Important dates
11 September — First bank strike in the new three-round schedule.
15 September — Merchant re-KYC deadline. No extension granted as of today.
28 to 30 September — Second bank strike, three days, per the same union notice.
26 October — Third round begins: a continuous, open-ended bank strike, per the union notice to Central Bank of India.
11 December — RBI's extended restriction period ends for The U.P. Civil Secretariat Primary Co-operative Bank, Lucknow, subject to further review.
One question
Should the government agree to a five-day banking week now, to head off the open-ended strike planned from 26 October? Yes / No