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Major commercial banks and savings banks will stop shortening their business hours in about a year and a half from the 30th and open normally at 9:00 am and close at 4:00 pm.



Major commercial banks announced within the company today that the business hours of 9:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. will be returned to 9:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. at the same time as the indoor mask duty is lifted next Monday, and related preparations are made at branches. It is a policy to send down the details, etc.



It is known that the Korea Development Bank has already delivered the same instructions to the branch yesterday (26th) afternoon.



Savings banks such as SBI are also scheduled to resume normal operations from the 30th.



It is from July 12, 2021 that the bank's business hours, which were originally '9 am to 4 pm', were reduced to '9:30 am to 3:30 pm'.



As the government strengthened social distancing in the metropolitan area to four levels, the finance labor and management agreed to temporarily shorten the business hours of banks in the metropolitan area, such as Seoul, Gyeonggi, and Incheon, by one hour from the 12th to the 23rd.



In October of the same year, the Central Labor-Management Committee with the participation of financial labor and management decided to maintain a 1-hour reduction in business hours until the government's COVID-19-related quarantine guidelines for private gatherings, restrictions on multi-use facilities, and the obligation to wear indoor masks are lifted. While doing so, the shortening of business hours was expanded nationwide.



In last year's industry-level negotiations, labor and management agreed to form a separate task force to discuss this issue again, but as there was no progress even after the schedule for lifting the indoor mask duty was announced, the financial employer decided to normalize business hours even without the union's complete consent. has been determined.



The management has recently obtained an interpretation that business hours can be normalized even without labor-management agreement after the indoor mask duty has been lifted through external legal advice.



The financial union, which still insists on 'opening at 9:30', is also considering filing an application for provisional injunction if the bank unilaterally normalizes business hours.



(Photo = Yonhap News)