Mumbai/ New Delhi: India's central bank and banking regulatory body RBI has asked banks to have a 'mandatory leave' policy as a prudent operational risk management measure. Under this mandatory leave policy the bank staff working in sensitive positions, including treasury operations and currency chests, will get a surprise holiday of at least 10 working days in a single spell every year under the modified risk management guidelines of the RBI. This should be done "without giving any prior intimation to these employees, thereby maintaining an element of surprise", RBI said in a notification on Friday.
The RBI gave banks six months to comply with these instructions. The revised norms repeal the circular dated April 23, 2015.
Banks have been told to ensure that the employees, while on mandatory leave, do not have access to any physical or virtual resources related to their work, with the only exception being internal/corporate email, which is usually available to all employees for general purposes. Banks will also prepare a list of sensitive positions to be covered under "mandatory leave" requirements and the list will be reviewed periodically. The implementation of this policy will be reviewed under the supervisory process.
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Sensitive positions or areas of operations covered under the 'mandatory leave' policy include treasury, currency chests, risk modelling, and model validation, according to 2015 circular.
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