"Any deviation in the understanding and interpretaton of the agreed points will amount to digressing from the MoU in which case the possibility of the member banks, who are already under tremendous financial pressure, pulling out en masse from the negotiations cannot be ruled out," IBA chief executive and secretary MN Dandekar said in a statement issued in Mumbai on Tuesday.

The banks' association has reiterated its stand of sticking to the MoU and has asked the bank unions, which are operating under the banner of United Forum of Bank Unions (UFBU), to accept the same. "IBA is not willing to compromise on the costing of pension issue. The costing at 26.5 per cent of the pensionable salary would be included in the total load of 12.25 per cent as already agreed under the MoU,"Dandekar said.

Describing the trade unions' argument as "factually incorrect" and "misleading", the IBA statement said: "It is unfortunate that unions instead of promoting a positive collective approach to the issues are attributing motives to the effors to IBA in arriving at a negotiated settlement."

The unions have been arguing that costing of pension for purpose of wage revision should be restricted to only 10 per cent of the basic pay per annum and the additional cost of 16.5 per cent cannot be carved out of the wage packet. This means that the additional cost will be over and above 12.25 per cent.

The unions' argument is that if the entire pension settlement is included in the total wage load, only 73.5 per cent of 12.25 per cent would be left for distribution among the various wage components.

Referring to the adverse effect of the current MoU on those still subscribing to the contributory provident fund scheme, Dandekar said enough time was given to them to move to the pension scheme.

"Theemployees were fully aware that pension scheme offered better terms and if still some of them chose to continue with contributory provident fund, it was their own decision," Dandekar said, adding that wage revision had to be uniform and there cannot be two sets of revisions for the two schemes.