Bank branch hours to be cut by 30 minutes next April
A person walks past a row of ATMs belonging to major commerical banks in Seoul, Sept. 13. Yonhap
Korea's bank branches will open 30 minutes later starting in April next year, reducing customer service hours under a tentative labor-management agreement reached Monday.
Under the agreement, branches will open at 9:30 a.m., instead of the current 9 a.m., while closing hours will remain unchanged at 4 p.m.
The tentative deal between the Korean Financial Industry Union, which represents workers at major commercial and policy banks, and the Korea Financial Industry Employers Association also calls for a 3 percent increase in total wages.
The two sides began negotiations in April and reached the tentative deal after about five months of talks. The union said it would call off a planned strike scheduled for Wednesday following the agreement.
The deal also includes a flexible work schedule allowing employees to delay their start time by up to one hour per week, with a maximum of 30 minutes per day. It also introduces a system for compensatory leave and changes to employee performance evaluations.
It also calls for improvements to the mystery shopping system, which is currently used to assess customer service at bank branches. Employees will not face disciplinary action based on mystery shopping results.
The agreement will extend eligibility for parental leave until the end of the school year when a child is in sixth grade, while expanding reduced working hours for employees with children in the lower grades of elementary school.
Monday's agreement did not include details on the potential relocation of state-run banks outside the capital, an issue opposed by the union.
Although the list of institutions subject to relocation remain unclear, the three state-run lenders — Korea Development Bank, the Industrial Bank of Korea and the Export-Import Bank of Korea — are among those being considered for relocation under the government's plan to move public institutions outside Seoul as part of efforts to promote balanced regional development.