Bank employees can expect fatter pay cheques soon.

With the conclusion of talks between the Indian Banks' Association and unions late this evening, the salaries of bank employees will go up with retrospective effect from November 2002.

While bank officers will get an increase of Rs 3,625 per month, a clerk will get an additional Rs 2,225 a month. The revision will determine the salary structure in 27 public sector banks till November 2007, beginning November 1, 2002, for about 757,000 employees, including officers and other staff.

Of course, bank bottomlines will take a hit as the salary bill will rise by 13.25 per cent. This follows the conclusion of talks between the Indian Banks' Association (IBA) and bank unions late Tuesday evening.

The deal means an incremental outgo of Rs 2,200 crore (Rs 22 billion) for the banking industry. For the 27 public sector banks, the total annual bill is Rs 19,000 crore (Rs 190 billion), HN Sinor, chief executive, IBA, told Business Standard soon after the talks concluded.

The bank unions have also agreed to limited transfers of clerical staff, one of the demands of the bank managements. "We have agreed that the staff will move within a district, irrespective of the distance and up to 100 kilometres outside a district," said AK Jana, president, All India Bank Officers' Confederation.

The IBA had earlier proposed wider mobility for workmen in three phases. The first phase is up to 150 kilometres, the second 250 km and the third within the state and to contiguous states. The three phases will be implemented by 2007.

Bank employees had earlier demanded a minimum increase of 12.25 per cent in salaries while the IBA had proposed a 9.5 per cent increase over the previous wage bill.

There have been 85 rounds of negotiations with the IBA over the last 20 months for the wage settlement, said a union leader.

The sixth and the seventh bipartite settlements had resulted in a 10.5 and 12.25 per cent salary hike over the previous negotiations, respectively. This is the eighth round of wage negotiations since the first round in 1966.

Banks unions across the country had struck work on August 24 demanding a settlement of wage negotiations. About 1 million bank employees had struck work on that day, disrupting banking services across the country.