The Indian Banks? Association (IBA) has appointed a panel of two actuaries?D Basu from Kolkata and Prasad from Hyderabad?to sort out pension and other post-retirement benefits of the banking industry.

A senior IBA official said the appointment followed consensus between IBA and the United Forum for Bank Employees (UFBU), the umbrella body of various bank employees? unions, recently. Also, apex employees’ unions have hinted that they may copy some features of the Sixth Pay Commission report for the central government employees.

However, the panel has not been assigned any task even after the passage of 15 days of its appointment.A preliminary meeting of

UFBU, IBA and the actuaries? panel was held in Kolkata on March 25.

Speaking to FE,

CH Venkatachalam, convenor of UFBU, said no date has been set for the next meeting with the panel. A common parameter will be given to the panel at the next meeting. This will pave the way for the panel to start work, Venkatachalam explained.

While IBA had earlier said that accepting the unions’ demand on pensions would burden banks by an additional Rs 26,000 crore, UFBU had pegged the figure at Rs 4,500 crore.

The difference in pension figures was more due to the appointment of separate panels of actuaries by IBA and UFBU. The panels had adopted varying parameters in calculating the pension burden.

However, both have since agreed to have a common panel.

The common parameter to be followed by the panel of two actuaries is based on two parts–financial and the non-financial. The financial parameter comprises subjects like return on investment, wage revision and extra pension liabilities. The non-financial parameter handles issues like debt, longevity, date of attrition and a host of other related issues.

Asked if the Sixth Pay Commission report will have any impact on the demands being raised by UFBU, Venkatachalam said, ?The commission report has never been a benchmark for the banking sector and we are not going to copy our demands per se. Still, we may include some features like clubbing of city and transport allowances and lenient house rent from the report.??