Account-holders of eight banks, which were merged with other lenders in the last two years, will face some difficulties as their cheque books and passbooks will become invalid from next month. Besides invalidation of the books, the account numbers, the IFSC and MICR codes will also change for people who have their accounts with the banks whose mergers came into effect from April 1, 2019, and April 1, 2020. These banks include Dena Bank, Vijaya Bank, Corporation Bank, Andhra Bank, Syndicate Bank, Oriental Bank of Commerce(OBC), United Bank of India (UBI) and Allahabad Bank.
The Punjab National Bank (PNB) has already alerted customers of Oriental Bank of Commerce (OBC) and United Bank of India, which were merged with the lender in April 2020, to change their existing cheque books as they will become invalid from April 1, 2021, as their validity remains till the end of this month. Dena Bank and Vijaya Bank were merged with another big lender, Bank of Baroda that came into effect on April 1, 2019. Andhra Bank and Corporation Bank merged with Union Bank of India, Syndicate Bank was merged with Canara Bank and Allahabad Bank was merged with Indian Bank.
The account holders with these banks need to get their information updated in order to avoid any trouble. Customers of these banks need to update their mobile number, address, name of the nominee, etc in order to get a new cheque book and passbook of the banks with which their old banks have been merged. After this, customers also need to update their personal information in various other financial instruments. The mergers were part of the major consolidation exercise that the government did in August 2019. The exercise had merged 10 public sector banks into four bigger and stronger banks. Public sector banks all across the country are on a two-day strike that has been called by the United Forum of Bank Unions (UFBU) after the government has proposed to privatise two public sector banks. Banking operations in the branches of these banks have also been hit.