Send bank staff in sensitive operations on leave without intimation: RBI

 The Reserve Bank of India has asked banks to frame policy to send the employees in sensitive positions or operations on mandatory leave for 10 or more days in a single spell each year without prior intimation.

As a prudent operational risk management measure, banks should have a ‘mandatory leave’ policy that will maintain an element of surprise, RBI said in a notification. The revised norms repeal the circular dated April 23, 2015.

RBI gave banks six months to comply with these revised instructions from the date of issue of this circular.

Banks should ensure that the employees, while on ‘mandatory leave’, do not have access to any physical or virtual resources related to their work responsibilities. The only exception to this is the internal/corporate email which is usually available to all employees for general purposes.

Banks should prepare a list of sensitive positions to be covered under ‘mandatory leave’ requirements and the list shall be reviewed periodically. The implementation of this policy will be reviewed under the supervisory process, RBI added.